Have you ever had one of those projects that never seem to get finished or perhaps never even started? You know the one… something on your To Do list that always seems to be at the bottom of the list and is not really that important but something that you just want to finish. Well, Dad had two of them and they started about 10 years ago when Nana and Gung Gung moved back to Virginia from Greenville, NC. During the move, the decision was made that a couple of items weren’t going to make the cut and they entrusted those items to Dad.
The first one was a very large and heavy tool trunk that was David’s grandfathers’. His Grandfather built the trunk when he was an apprentice carpenter for the railroad (building/repairing passenger coaches) and this was his final project before he graduated to a full-fledged carpenter. The trunk even came with quite a few antique planes that he had used on the job (Dad used one of the planes to help build the kitchen table). The inside of the trunk was very intricate with a bunch of compartments for various tools. Since it was so big and heavy, it didn’t get moved much and it wasn’t very practical for every day tools. So after thinking about it for a while, Dad decided that maybe it should hold a different set of tools… something that he had a lot of and no place to store safely – his camera collection. The inside of the trunk was in good shape, although a little dirty, but the outside had a heavy duty black paint on the outside to protect it from all the elements… presumably something that was required back then when moving from one job site to another. Dad knew that Mom was not going to let that sit in the house, so he decided to refinish it and put some wheels on the bottom to easily maneuver. The refinishing took much longer than anticipated but was definitely worth it and it became a nice table for the Den. Although he stored all of his old camera gear in there, Dad never finished the inside, that is until a couple of weeks ago. It still needed a good cleaning and he also inserted some foam boards with grey felt into the compartments to help protect the cameras. He also re-organized all the cameras and lenses to make sense with the most used ones in the top compartments.
The second item was an antique silverware tray/box that Nana purchased while living in Scotland. Unfortunately, the way it was designed to hold silverware wasn’t very conducive to holding tools so it wasn’t used much and stayed in the basement until we moved to Clayton. Dad finally got around to removing the dividers and flocking (spray on felt material) a couple of weeks ago and it has now become a very functional place to store tablets and laptops. Dad lined the interior with some chipboard covered in a cotton ‘Tartan’ style fabric in deference to it’s heritage. The silverware box has an engraved label on the top dated June 15th 1912 as it was apparently a gift of some importance. After doing a little online research, Dad found out that the gentleman that received the silverware box was a Spirit Merchant and a Consul for Greece who lived and died in Glasow, Scotland and is actually listed in the Glascow Necropolis (cemetery) walking tour (https://www.glasgownecropolis.org/).
The Payne Chronicles 