The Tin Cup
Growing up in the little red house, I could never remember a time when the cup wasn't there. My earliest recollections have the tin cup affixed there, firmly under the eaves of the garage. Standing in the driveway as a boy, I'd occasionally glance up, see it, plan to ascertain its provenance, then proceed to forget in lieu of other boyish pursuits. It wasn't until I was about eleven, that one day the tin cup returned to my attention, and I then determined to do something about it. I was at an age where I could make provision to inspect it closer. Fumbling through the garage, I dragged out a paint-stained wooden step ladder, leaned it against the bricks, and climbed toward the mystery that beckoned. Time had taken its toll; the tin cup, which had once been a prominent fixture at the lower corner of the fascia, was now mostly hidden behind some ivy. The ivy had overwhelmed the whole garage. I examined the tin cup closely. It looked very old. It seemed it could hold perhaps two or three tablespoons of rain. A small handle protruded from the cup. It looked as though it must have been part of a larger set of measuring cups. The handle was poked through a small screw-eye embedded in the garage. This holder and the cup, were apparently victims of many episodes of painting the garage; the thing was spattered with drips and dried paint, no doubt advantageously acting as a glue to keep the occasional nor'easter from dislodging it. Without much effort, I broke the seal, removed the cup, and went off to find mom, who hopefully could explain why our garage had always featured such a strange decoration.
Mom smiled, told me the story of the tin cup, and politely told me to go put it back, which I did.
Years later, in my mid twenties, our little red house was sold. Preparing to leave, I strolled through the yard one last time recollecting childhood memories. I spotted the tin cup in its place, still poking out from the vines (to which we had long since surrendered the garage). I reached up (I was tall enough by this time) and removed it. It was the last item taken from the house. As Colleen and I pulled up to our new apartment in a U-Haul truck, I reminded her to roll down her window and toss the tin cup into the driveway, which she did. For both of us, this was our first time moving away from home, and would be our first time living together. The metallic clink of the cup hitting the driveway signaled our new beginning.
The cup waxed and waned for years afterward. It got shuffled around in the various moves to different apartments; making an appearance here, and then slipping away for a while there. Somehow it always managed to find its way into a moving-box when the time came to move, only to get lost for a while then found again.
A few years ago I was at the dealership trading in my car. The deal about done, I felt a compulsion to go check the trunk of my old heap one last time. I had already cleaned it out, so there was no real reason to do so, but I appeased the feeling. Searching the trunk, I stuck my hand down into a crevice and pulled out the tin cup. It journeyed home with me, the first passenger of my new car, and found a place above a door in the kitchen of my apartment, where it remained, largely forgotten, for a few more years.
Finally Colleen and I married, and found the house of our dreams. And so it came that there was another chance to re-create that moment, back in 1963, when mom and dad were pulling up to their new house: Without a dime in their pocket, all their possessions in the car, yet optimistic, they pulled into the driveway of that little red house they had spent so much for. In front of the garage mom opened the door of the car. When she did, the tin cup fell out onto the driveway. It being the first item to arrive, merited its place of honor on the fascia of the garage for so many years.
-Dave
