scott greeson music

Scott and I were changing a creep feed area in the barn and I went to get a couple of the tools from the toolbox Dad gave me from his shop. I hadn’t opened it in a while. The smell of Dad’s shop took me immediately back to memories of working on fence repairs with him; rebuilding horse trailers; constructing pony jumps. Touching the very tools he had used on those projects provided a connection to the man I miss.

Vickie and her dad, James R. Maris, with one of Vickie's Connemara weanlings, Dawn's Maire Shannon (Kerrymor Madison X Realta). Photo taken 1996.

I had recently been helping Mom put together a presentation for a continuing education group about the life of a stateside bride during WWII. It’s just a nutshell of the story I am helping her record, so that it can be treasured for years to come. One of the letters she and I read from the navigator of the B-24 bomber that Dad piloted was a sweet summary, “Jimmy, you could have taken this tin lizzy apart in the air and put it back together again if you needed to in order to get us home. We would have flown to the ends of the Earth with you.”

Almost 70 years after the events of WWII, my dear husband honors the man, the moment and my childhood memories of more recent years, as he stood quietly with a hand on my shoulder while I took in the feel and the smell of my Dad’s shop tools. After just the right amount of time, we went back to work in the barn and finished our little project. It wasn’t a big undertaking, but I know the llamas like the new arrangement, and my Dad would be so pleased to know his shop tools were part of the project.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 at 2:18 pm and is filed under Connemara Ponies, Farm Projects, Heartsong Llamas, Memories, Scott Greeson, Vickie Maris. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.