Trina Machacek
For some reason I seem to be hard on chains. Not big ole log chains used to pull a truck out of the snow with another bigger truck. No, little delicate girly chains for necklaces. It was my other half that would, at least ten times a day, tell me the clasp of my necklace was in front and it needed to be scooted around to the back of my neck. I figured that if I didn’t have to keep spinning the chain around, it would last a lot longer. But! Yes, a 14k gold “but.” At each spin of the chain the clasp grows weaker until “Tink” it comes apart.
A big fear with wearing jewelry is losing jewelry. Something hanging around your neck on a little golden chain has probably an 87% chance of getting lost into Never-Never Land when it breaks. Sometimes you catch it and save the day, sometimes…
When I sold my very first article to Country Woman Magazine some forty-five years ago, and being the girl I am, I wanted to buy something that would always remind me of the day that check came in the mail. With my name on it as payment for writing. It was a pretty cool thing.
I chose a 14k golden baby ring and put it on a thin golden chain. It was pretty, fancy and all about me. I wore it for a long time. Everywhere, with everything. Not a lot of dressing up in life for me, so that chain and baby ring made me feel special.
Until winter one year. The snow was deep and ice was below the snow and wind was above the snow. That combination made wearing a winter coat and scarf part of the outside apparel. One February day I took off for town in the snow and blow to retrieve the mail. Under the coat, scarf, hat and mittens I wore a t-shirt and my ever-present necklace. You should know that as special as it was to me, it was worth about fifty bucks’ tops. The check for that first story I wrote was for $75.
Got to town, a ten-mile trip, picked up the mail at the post office and slipped a bit when I got back into the truck. That must have been when it happened. That slip, jerk and slide must have got the necklace caught on the scarf where it then broke and fell off. From there it had to have slipped down the inside of my coat, off the leg of my Levis and down into the slushy street. Sad story, isn’t it?
I didn’t notice the absence of the baby ring and chain until I unfurled myself at home. Oh I looked down at the floor. I went inch by inch through the layers of winter garb I’d just removed. I retraced my steps from the back door out onto the deck, across the back porch to the garage. Sniveling all the way to the truck. Hoping with each step that something would glisten up to my eye and all would be right with the world. Nothing! My prize was gone forever. I still, in my mind, see it laying in the snow in the gutter in front of the post office. Being carried down to the storm drain by the melted snow down the pipes and finally ending up in the sewer ponds that I pass every time I go to town. Either there or it fell off and fell between the deck and the house and someday when I am gone, someone will build a bigger house here. They will have to move the deck away and there it will be laying in the dirt. Baby ring and golden chain a glint in the sun. Oh it’s somewhere. One of those things I will ask The Big Guy when I get to heaven.
Finally. That’s where I wanted to go today. What are some of the millions of questions we all want answers to when we die and meet our maker, whoever that may be to you. I want to know where I lost that necklace. I want to know why grass grows in my flowerbeds but flowers do not grow in my lawn. I want to know why, dear Lord why, everything that tastes so danged good is usually so bad for me. Ben and Jerry’s toffee coffee ice cream, fresh baked bread smeared with the wonderful apple butter I was given to from Izzy and Misha—uh the apple butter. Or my grilled rib eye steaks and TACOS!
Yeah, that’s about as deep as I go. I wonder, what would your questions be?
Trina lives in Diamond Valley, north of Eureka, Nevada. She loves to hear from readers. Email her at [email protected]
Really!
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