The Quiddity of Things: Part Three

 

Probably my interest in some accoutrements stem from the toys we had when I was a tiny little boy. Consider, for instance, this squeaky toy of a lion that we called “Omi” despite the beard, simply because he had glasses, a cane, and what we referred to as a “purse”. From that, no doubt, sprang my desire for a Gladstone or Carpet Bag to haul my stuff around in, with a Briefcase being a distant third. Merlin in The Sword in the Stone had his ‘bag of holding’, and Mary Poppins her carpet bag, as did Phileas Fogg (his was stuffed with 20,000 pounds and, in the cartoon, all sorts of eccentric items).

 For a brief time in grade school, I had a grey satchel of cheap plastic that was the closest I ever came. Only a few years ago I bought a vintage case (not the one shown here) that resides in the top of my closet, filled with odds and ends, but ever ready in case I go on another trip.

Another toy we had was called Professor Worm, and he had an Umbrella. I desperately wanted an umbrella, a real Bumbershoot (black or dark green in color), sturdy enough to be a cane, wide enough to cover nearly two people, and able (in fancy) to become a parachute or even an emergency boat. An elaborate handle would be nice, like a carved squirrel with the tail as the hook. Our own umbrellas were inadequate, rickety, and later, folding. Many characters had them: strangely enough, Mary Poppins pops up again. I’d never seen the movie, but the image was ubiquitous.

Then there’s Sam the Snowman, who has a pocket watch, a derby, AND an umbrella, thus ticking a multitude of boxes. When it comes to umbrellas, I still haven’t found what I’m looking for, not even a good approximation.

Not quite so necessary but still intriguing was the Pipe. A good number of fictional characters were still smoking when I was a child, from Popeye to Frosty the Snowman to Sherlock Holmes to (once again) Merlin. Again, there was a sort of intellectual dimension to it, as it was seen to aid contemplation. Later on, I read The Hobbit, and that solidified my fondness for pipes – as an idea. I would never (and have never) smoked anything. Not because of medical reasons, per se, but for aesthetic reasons. Cigarettes were a ubiquitous stinky mess everywhere in my childhood, and cigars (at least the kind smoked in our local bowling alley) were even fouler. Pipes seemed more fragrant and their smoke less penetrating. Pop kept a couple of pipes in the pencil drawer (I don’t remember him ever smoking one, but we played with them) but it was Uncle Doc who was the partaker in the wider family.  Uncle Arno and Aunt Hedwig kept a fancy one in their cabinet; it was carved like a stag with its antlers holding the bowl and had a steel-mesh stem. Years later my friend Alan Peschke ( http://briarfiles.blogspot.com/) gave me a churchwarden pipe. The chances of my smoking it are practically nil. But I love just having it.