Yesterday I read a marvelous story in The New Yorker by Peter Hessler called The Paperboy’s Secret.
It reminded me why I enjoy good writing.
A talented writer does not merely tell us about his life.
He quietly unlocks a door in ours.
Halfway through Hessler’s story, I found myself no longer thinking about paper routes or newspapers.
I was thinking about a blacksmith in Coronation, Alberta.
We’ll call him Smithy.
I grew up in Coronation during a time when every small town still had people who could fix almost anything.
If your tractor broke, Smithy could repair it.
If your wagon needed welding, Smithy could repair it.
If your horse needed shoeing, Smithy could probably do that too.
And if a thirteen-year-old boy walked into his shop and announced he wanted a Bowie knife like the one in the movie The Iron Mistress, Smithy could apparently do that as well.
I had recently seen the film.
In it, Jim Bowie acquires a magnificent knife forged from metal that supposedly came from a meteorite that had fallen from the heavens.
This seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
I marched into Smithy’s shop and explained that I wanted a knife exactly like Jim Bowie’s.
Smithy considered the matter.
He looked around his shop.
Perhaps he checked to see whether any meteorites had recently landed behind the grain elevators.
Finding none, he eventually produced an old file and transformed it into a knife.
I still have it.
The knife has survived for more than seventy years.
Which is more than I can say for several parts of my memory.
What I remember even more clearly, however, is the conversation that followed.
Smithy was a man of considerable humor.
Unfortunately, much of that humor would not survive modern human resources departments.
He suggested that a certain part of my anatomy could be improved by welding it onto a substantial piece of iron.
He did not use the word “anatomy.”
Nor did he use the word “substantial.”
At thirteen, I was not entirely certain how welding worked, but I was reasonably confident this was not a medical procedure I wished to explore.
So I replied that I understood his daughter was coming to visit soon and might be interested in hearing about the helpful advice he was giving local boys.
Smithy turned pale.
Remarkably pale.
The transformation was so sudden that I briefly wondered whether he had been struck by lightning.
“No, no,” he said quickly. “I was only kidding.”
And that was that.
The conversation ended.
The knife was completed.
And I left feeling oddly victorious.
Peter Hessler’s story reminded me of something.
As children, we often remember adults as giants.
Then, years later, we discover they were simply people.
Wonderful people.
Flawed people.
Funny people.
Occasionally foolish people.
People who repaired machinery, forged knives, told questionable jokes, and sometimes found themselves outmaneuvered by a thirteen-year-old boy.
So my thanks to Peter Hessler.
His story brought back one of my own.
And somewhere, I hope, Smithy is still smiling.
Though probably not too broadly.
His daughter might be listening.
