Issue 11
Iron
Brian G. Parker
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The History of Civilization
On a cool day in 1976, my father dragged me away from cartoons to give me my first lesson in the family business.
In the barn, where his furnace roared and his tools lined the workbench, he spoke of history and of iron's place in it. As he placed the heavy, awkward hammer in my small feminine hand, and with his hand guided me through my first tentative taps at the red-hot iron, my father said that without iron, civilization might never have come.
The men of my father's family had been blacksmiths for countless generations, and each father had passed iron's secrets to each son for all of those generations. Without regret, he reminded me that he was the last male in his family line and had no sons to whom to give the secrets, so I would be the one to learn them.
When my father died, I placed his hammer in his hand and hoped he would find Vulcan and practice his art for eternity. I have my own tools, in that same barn, and though there is not much need for blacksmiths any more, I have a son to whom I will pass the history of civilization.
~Brian G. Parker
Brian G. Parker is a technical writer living well beyond his means in Sarasota, Florida. Email.
© 2003 by Brian G. Parker. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2003 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.