The Craft Room

The Craft Room in the cellar of our house was a place of magical transformations. In the 3 by 5 foot room, I first saw the images of oak trees come to life in a shallow pool of developing fluid.  It was there that our 4-H club sprinkled powder on copper chips of butterflies and birds and then fired them in a tiny kiln to make enameled pins and chunky, odd-looking earrings. And I remember a short-lived experiment making plastic flowers in the vent-less room. We’d fashion them out of wire and dip them into colorful goo.  While they were funky and interesting, we practically asphyxiated ourselves on the fumes.  But there was always something a bit unnerving about the Craft Room.  It was windowless, necessary to develop pictures. The door was a roughly sliding barn door that creaked when closed. And one could not avoid noticing the musty smell of the dirt floor below the small platform we stood on. So it was not surprising that it was one of the last places we chose to clean out after my father passed away from Frontal Lobe Dementia in 2011.

 In the years after my siblings and I left the house, the room had become a home for items my father loosely determined fell under the “Crafts” label and had nowhere else to store. It was my brother-in-law who first decided to venture inside, where he immediately found a number of interesting glass bottles and jars. Most intriguing was a large jar containing enough mercury to kill a large daycare. Let me preface this to say that my father was a biochemist, so having a portion of the silver roiling metal was not that surprising, but the amount was. As my measurements tend toward the culinary, I would estimate that the jar contained at least 5 cups of the beautiful shimmering element. There was some discussion at the time about creating a hazmat situation by spilling at least some of it on the floor.  Perhaps this seems alarming to you, but it occurred to a few people in the family that this act, and the reporting of the unfortunate accident, would necessitate the removal of my mother to a safe place while the situation was remediated. And my mother heretofore extremely reluctant to move into an assisted living facility, might actually take a fancy to a place where she could have scrambled eggs every morning, and there were railings even on the straight-aways. But calmer heads prevailed, and the mercury was turned in at the autumn hazardous waste day. I’m saddened by this. I still fondly remember rolling mercury balls into each other on our dining room table. It didn’t harm me, did it?

In the spring, I went rummaging through  the Craft Room again, and found a gallon glass jar, full of white, waxy oily chunks.  The old label identified the contents as “Spermaceti”, and despite being a bit put off by the name, I took these home to find out what this stuff was.  I was surprised to find that I was looking at blocks of a substance that had been, probably over a hundred years ago, in the head of a sperm whale.  The waxy material is presumed to help the whales’ echolocation. In the 1800s, it was used to make candles and as an emollient in ointments, which is likely how my father got it, his grandfather being a pharmacist back in those days.  Did I mention that it is illegal to sell Spermaceti? Because, of course, it has been illegal to hunt sperm whales for decades.  In fact, a fine of $2000 was imposed on someone who tried to sell a small amount on eBay.  We’re pretty sure it is not illegal to possess it, but if you know of a whaling museum that needs a donation, we’d be happy to oblige.  

Recently I went down to the Craft room and started poking through the many heavy stiff drawers. There was a cavernous drawer containing leather bits and pieces, and about 30 leather-working tools, awls, crimping and cutting tools. I don’t remember ever doing any leather work in 4-H, but my father sometimes wrapped leather around musical instruments that he made and after his death I found an old shoe of his with a threaded awl still stuck in it.  I moved onto a set of small plastic drawers containing beads and jewelry clasps. Inside I found a plastic box containing about 30 bright red and black beans.  They would have made a nice necklace.  Inside the box was a piece of paper on which was written, “Jequirity Beans” in my father’s handwriting.  Intrigued, I took them home and googled the phrase.  The scientific name for these seeds is Aburs Precatorius, and they contain the chemical abrin, which is closely related to ricin, although the fatal dose of abrin is approximately 75 times smaller than the fatal dose of ricin.  My father was an expert in alkaloids, and so, again, it makes some sense that he might have these.  However, it might have been thoughtful if he’d identified the beans with a large skull and crossbones on the box, or just “Poison!” in block letters. Which reminds me of the night my father returned home just in time to pull the potful of castor beans off the stove, which my mother had found unlabeled in the freezer, but that’s another story.