Show and Tell...

 

 

For show and tell today I brought a calling card case.

Doesn’t everybody carry one?

This silver case sat, tarnished and black, on a dark corner shelf in my Grandparents house. I remember just where it was back then, and I ignored it too,  like everyone did. Just another dust magnet.

Then it sat, ignored, in my parent’s house, and now, for the last 25 years, in mine.

This morning I decided to give it some love, polished for the first time in three generations.

I’m sure I’ve opened it, too long ago to remember.

The backstory is that my Great Grandfather worked for the Pullman Company in San Antonio, Texas. A railroad man with his own car, he helped Mexico grow their railroad system “from 416 miles in 1876 to 15,360 miles in 1910”, and became a friend of the Mexican President, Diaz.  

Grandma Maverick remembered sitting in the lap of President Diaz, and his wife giving her this silver case.

These notes from my mother were inside, her handwriting as immediately familiar to me, as her voice itself.