there was one other....

... thing my brother asked about, hoping it would still be lingering around in our dad's workshop.  Even though he died in 2000, there are still many oddments, remnants of Sonny's life that hang around. Lots of tools and bits and pieces of his long interesting history of following in the footsteps of his dad, the inveterate tinker-er, remain. Hanging from the rafters of his workshop, tucked away in between the 2 x 4 studs, gathering dust on the pegs of the board he installed to hang tools to have them handy for the next project.

When my brother asked me to look for another little thing that came into his mind, I learned a fascinating bit of trivia related to our grand dad. I knew that T.R., Sr. had been employed by the 'city' in the small town where I was born and spent my early years. Also that he would be called upon to climb into the upper reaches of the big churches in times of pipe organ malfunction. I don't know precisely why he got that job: maybe he had some training? Maybe he volunteered? Perhaps he just loved to tinker and people knew how smart he was. A man who was genetically programed to take any thing apart to repair and put it back together in good working order. A very useful trait passed on to my dad as well as my brother. All of whom would say: 'Hmmm... let me look at it.'

The little gizmo my brother was hoping would still be lingering around and find-able: an ancient device grand dad used to help him deduce the difficulties with the multitude of big brass pipes in the various churches. I know virtually nothing about the workings of those gigantic musical devices. But according to my brother, when grand dad was trying to figure out where the pumping air was leaking out of the organ, which pipe the air was being diverted to: he used the bee-keeping tool to blow smoke into the pipes to determine which one the air was escaping from.

I found this absolutely fascinating because I had seen that little rusty,, dusty gizmo all my life - assumed its only function was to help control honey bees when the hive needed to be checked. Used to provide smoke from a hand full of glowing pine needles, just barely burning, creating lots of clouds of inebriating smoke to dull the attack mode of honey bees. The can of smouldering pine needles had a bellows attached that would direct the smoke into the hive, cause the bees to be so dulled they would not come barrelling out demanding justice.

I was amazed when my brother told me that it had been around long before his short-lived stint as a beekeeper when he signed on to be in the 4-H Club. Everyone in the club was required to have a project related to livestock or farming. I'm not sure how my family ended up with bee hives to tend, feed, rob for honey. But probably fortunate we did not get in the hog-farming business. The several bee hives were not located in the back yard - but on some farm land several miles from town or other residences. Brother got over animal husbandry, but my dad continued to be a beekeeper for several years, recruiting me to sell the honey.

(Some examples of smokers you might find in an ancient, dog-eared, discolored Farmer's Almanac.)

I found the ancient rusty can that my granddad used to discern the drift of smoke in the pipe organs a hundred years ago. Dusted it off and thought about putting a handful of pine needles in to see if it still works, but suspect the bellows part is too dry rotted to work. So I will just mail it to my brother, along with the spikes grandad used to climb up trees when he was in the saw milling business.