Ball Bearings

A month or so ago, someone I knew growing up died. What follows is a memory from around 1964.

Her father fixed cars. The shop was across downtown, by the river.

Marbles were everything in second grade. Kids brought bags of them to school. Cat's eyes and steelies and the clear ones that looked like ice. Recess was marble time.

"Want to see something?" she asked one morning in Mrs. Elsden’s class.

She opened her small hand. Three steel ball bearings sat in her palm, perfect and cold.

"From Dad's shop," she said.

I took them. They were heavy for their size. Heavier than any marble. I rolled them between my fingers during reading time. They made no sound.

At recess, I put them in my marble bag with the others. My friend Jimmy watched.

"Those aren't marbles," he said.

"I know."

"Let me see."

"No."

The ball bearings made the bag heavier. They clicked against the glass marbles when I walked. I liked the sound.

After school, I found her in the bus line.

"Thank you," I said.

She shrugged. "Dad has boxes of them."

I kept those ball bearings for years. I lost them in one of my moves after college. I’ve looked for them but never found them.

Her father kept the shop going as far as I know.