Didn’t buy it.
T’was handed
down from either Harry,
wife’s paternal grandfather,
or my dad.
Light brown wooden handle,
varicolored dried paint drops and spackle
dapple the scraper’s handle.
Thin, grey, metal tapered blade
three inches wide at tip,
kept rust and spackle free
to perform her perfect work.
I could suspend her
from my workshop pegboard
using the hole on her handle
but her home’s an outside pocket
on my black and red Husky canvas bag.
Tough enough to scrape flaking paint,
precise enough to caress joint compound
to baby-bottom smooth.
Her fine edge got
bent, ever so slightly;
how, I don’t know;
she never told me until
she left stubborn ridges
on wallboard compound
during a small repair.
I told my wife.
“When we go to Home Depot,
buy another one,” she said.
My scraper, prone, vulnerable,
on a vise’s anvil edge
withstood without complaint
my firm but gentle
ball peen hammer taps
until her blade returned to flat and true.
There is no other one.
I’ll leave it to my daughter or my son.
