Rings

So, earlier this week, juvat shared with us some historical stuff that his DIL had ("Hidden Treasure" at Chant du Départ: Hidden Treasure (oldafsarge.blogspot.com) and in the comments section I talked about a peculiar ring that my wife, Mrs. Andrew, has from her family, her good side of the family.

(This would be several pictures of THE RING, but Mrs. Andrew is busy futzing with it and not sending me any photos because she's trying to clean them up and isn't taking "It's okay, it's for a bunch of people who don't see well anyways" as an excuse so, well, I'll post the pics as soon as she sends them to me.  No, she's not persnickity at all...)

That is a ring, made from a stainless nut, supposedly, from the supply that was used on Little Boy, the first war dropped atomic bomb, the one that was an enriched uranium gun bomb (basically a gun fires one chunk into the other chunk of uranium and makes the boom.)  Or it was from the machines that separated all the uranium.  From Plant Y-12, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  

Y-12, you know, being the electromagnetic isotope separation plant that made enriched uranium.  It was part of the Clinton Engineer Works, built as part of the Manhattan Project.  What? You didn't know what Y-12 was?  I blame the socialist teachers for that.  No, seriously, once the secrecy veil was lifted, our accomplishments should have been lauded and held in high esteem by our educators for at least a couple hundred years.  

By Department of Energy Oak Ridge - http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/em/ssab/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1931232

Seems Mrs. Andrew's mother's father was a machinist during WWII, at Plant Y12, in Oak Ridge, during the whole Manhattan Project. And, being proud of his work, once it was known what the work was, he made said ring out of said nut using the machinist tools he had access to.  Putting his last name, the year, the plant onto the ring.

Really friggin neat, I think.  So does Mrs. Andrew, who wears it proudly.  Problem is, well, all her mother's side of the family has either passed or are not good family, so what to do with said ring when, eventually, Mrs. Andrew passes.

My suggestion has been, for the last few years, to contact whatever museum or historical unit that is in Oak Ridge, TN, that deals with said neato stuff dealing with the Manhattan Project.  Or the museum at Los Alamos (if there is one) or some other museum (juvat suggested the National Museum of the Pacific War in lovely Friedricksberg, TX.)

So, well, she wants me to hang photos, I want her to contact museums, I still haven't finished fixing the sink.  Yes, we have issues with procrastination and 'getting to it.' 

Then there's the other ring, besides her wedding ring, that Mrs. Andrew wears.  My dad's wedding ring (I have huge fat knuckles) that comes from his mother's side of the family that was her great-grandfather's ring.  Old gold, more rose than bright yellow, just a plain thick ring. That came to me after my dad passed.  5 generations, and we have no kids.  So what to do?  

Fortunately, my Godson, who is also my #1 nephew, from oldest brother, is getting married, finally, to his fortunate maid, come March 2022. So ring will go to him for his wedding.  It's not a present from Mrs. Andrew and I, since it's more of a trust being passed down from one generation to another. 

What's kind of weird, but isn't for my family on either side (mom or dad) is that we've always had this hand-me-down attitude of generational stuff.  My eldest brother's house is chock full of post Civil War/Gilded Age furniture, including a huge corner china cabinet that was at one time a built-in (possibly pre-CivWar) that was made into a stand-alone.  End tables in the living room?  Gilded age with marble tops.  A sideboard and a huge expandable table (and chairs) that can fit 12 easy, and if one can stretch out the whole thing, will extend to 20' but eldest brother would have to have new leaves made for the spaces, else things would fall down.

We've lived with it, used it, taken care of it. We have a Singer sewing machine, one of the treadle models, that we've used before (punches through thick cloth or thin leather better than modern electric machines.)

My favorite pots are the ones my mother got, stainless steel, as a premium for buying a Kirby upright vacuum cleaner in the 50's.  Thick stainless, strong, holds heat well, cleans well.  Sure, some of it is damaged (the non-stainless handle attachment points rusting out so the handle falls off, one of these days I'll take it to someone who welds stainless and get them to weld a stainless nut or something) but the pots are still very useful and work with my nice induction cook plate (if you don't have an induction stove top or cook plate, well, it's like cooking with gas, that much of a quick response, without, you know, using gas. The apartment-provided stove can't get hot enough to heat a wok to good stir-fry temp but the induction cook plate, well, if I'm not careful, I can burn off the seasoning from my wok, but at that temperature it almost makes new seasoning by itself.)

I see people, daily, shedding their ancestral stuff and going with modern garbage.  Which I understand.  It's nice to minimize junk in the house, and junk in one's life.  But, well, how much is too far?

Ancestral stuff.  It's what allows us to keep in touch with our ancestors. I feel sorry for people that don't have ancestral stuff.