His Dogness

By Garnet Goldman

We don’t own a dishwasher, which is fine with me. I don’t particularly enjoy washing pots with caked food that puts up a struggle. For the most part, though, I like washing dishes. It clears the mind and provides a sense of accomplishment not so readily found elsewhere. One minute, you’re holding a Garfield glass with a puddle of milk at the bottom that no self-respecting 9-year-old would dream of using. The next minute, you’re holding a shiny, clean glass eager to be called into service for Mr. Doobins’ next glass of refreshing milk.

The other day, two slender crystal glasses were among the dishes sitting on the counter waiting to be washed. Although they were sold as liqueur glasses, we use them primarily for the kids’ M&M treats. The danger with M&M’s, of course, is that, once you start eating them, you keep on eating them until the bag is empty. By filling each of the glasses with M&M’s for Sparkle Girl and Doobins, we have some hope of limiting the amount they eat. Plus, the M&M’s look really good in those glasses. The glasses have been in my life for more than 30 years. I bought them when I was living in San Francisco to use for Frangelico.

I don’t think about San Francisco every time I look at them but, this time, I did. I like having things that are both satisfying on their own and that have the power to trigger pleasant memories. When the M&M glasses are clean, they share a shelf with two blue ceramic bowls that I bought on a particularly fun day-trip poking around pottery studios in Seagrove. That shelf has a lot of memory triggers. It also serves as home to plates, bowls, cups and mugs that once belonged to Garnet’s beloved grandmother Debo.

At Christmas, I pull out a ceramic bowl that my friend Mike Callaghan made. It was one of my favorites, and, after it got dropped I couldn’t bear to throw it out. So I glued it back together. When you fill it with Christmas ornaments, you don’t see the scars. Down in our basement is an electric shoe buffer that belonged to my grandfather Daddy Ralph. It has rotating heads at each end covered with what makes me think of shag carpeting. The black buffer is for black shoes and the red one for brown shoes. I don’t ever use it but it reminds me of Daddy Ralph and of the days when polishing my shoes on Saturday was an integral part of getting ready for church on Sunday.

Draped on the couch in the living room is a bright, cheerful quilt – yellow is the dominant color – that someone my father had helped gave him when I was a teen-ager. When I went off to college, he gave it to me to use on my bed there. Ever since, the quilt has gone with me wherever I moved. I don’t think of my father every time I look at the quilt. But sometimes I do, and the memory is a little gift.