Member-only story
SILVER
A Memoir in Color
The price of silver goes up and down but that does not affect the value it has added to my lifeline. In the January that I was born, silver cost $.85 an ounce. Today as the birthdays of my siblings Emily and Tom finish out the same month now in 2021, the price of silver is $27.18. I guess that demonstrates the time value of money, the wisdom of investing in silver, and what my parents were up to in the deep winter months in our village in southwest Ohio.
Wherever you see this shiny white, semi-precious element, please know that second-best has always been good enough for me.
I used to have a silver-plated baby cup, but it wasn’t mine. Tarnished, it sat in my hope chest, something I found at a thrift shop, or that was handed down in our family but never engraved.
Silver was the color of a bright new dime, found in the toe of my Christmas stocking, along with some Hershey’s Kisses and a small hematite stone.
Our family only polished the good silver at Thanksgiving. So I labored with the ammonia-based creamy liquid to prepare the forks and knives we kept in a wooden chest. Also the large platter, engraved with fruits and vines. To hold the 20 pound turkey that was slow-cooked all night. Always before the cave explorers came to join our table.
