WHAT GIFT CAN a person give a woman who starts dinner preparation by walking out the back door of her 864-square-foot house to kill a chicken with her bare hands? Who once chased an escaped circus baboon from between the bedsheets on her laundry line? Who lived her long life on a small subsistence farm next to the railroad tracks in a Colorado town where the feed lots, slaughterhouse, and sugar beet factory fought for olfactory dominance with the wind as referee?
For this woman, my grandmother, the perfect gift was always salt and pepper shakers. And we gave them in abundance: The most prominent feature of her small home was floor-to-ceiling, built-in, glass-encased shelves in the dining room, the living room, and the kitchen, all full of salt and pepper shaker sets.
My grandmother's house in February 2013, shortly after she passed away at age 92. HEATHER HOPP-BRUCE/ GLOBE STAFF
The shelves, like her home, were tidy and uncluttered. In the rare moments she had time to do so, she would sit in the wooden chair next to her stand of beloved African violets and talk about each shaker set.
There was the little set of cannons, frog (salt) and lotus (pepper) on a lily pad, a whole section of chickens, the round set we got her in Hawaii, the boxy olive green set from Illinois. There were so many tiny wooden “ma” and “pa” outhouses, hollowed antler chunks, sleeping donkeys, a whole shelf of covered wagons and steers plus the Kool Cigarettes red-bowed penguin Millie and her paramour Willie. Multiple Mount Rushmore sets shared a shelf with dragons and frogs. San Francisco trolleys, corn on the cobs, Marin County, Cape Canaveral, Memphis. A squirrel (salt) holding a large nut (pepper). Montana, Seattle, so many cats. Disneyland! Bermuda! Denver!
They marked the travels and ages of her friends, siblings, children, and grandchildren; here was a set my cousin gave her as a child, there was a set I sent her my first year in college. My parents’ first vacation. My aunt and uncle’s honeymoon. From loved ones near, from travels far. Evidence that anywhere we went she was in our minds and hearts. Not one of those sets did she buy for herself.
I used to think she really loved salt and pepper shakers, the utility within artistry, the duality. A woman of order, maybe she liked the salt and pepper shaker rules: In the United States, the pepper shaker should have more holes than the salt shaker (often three holes for pepper, two for salt). The letters S and P are preferable to save users the trouble of counting holes, but optional. You can try to be clever about making one vessel for both spices, but the two should never mix until they touch the food. I used to wonder what sets she needed to complete the collection, what sets she wanted.
But now I think I was wrong. I don’t think she wanted any particular set. She may not have cared for salt and pepper shakers at all. To her they were vessels, sure, but rather vessels of memories, reminders of people that loved her and the passing time which allowed that love to grow. Some collections are like that; not curated, not acquired for the sake of completing a set, not a hobby. Some collections are simply an opportunity for shared memories. One year my mother decreed that she hereby would only decorate her Christmas tree with penguin-themed ornaments, which sparked another joyful connection between us, all the world a treasure hunt for festive little flightless tuxedo birds on gold strings.
My grandmother peacefully passed away at home a little more than ten years ago at age 92, and is buried in a cemetery that lies in the shadow of the sugar beet factory. Her salt and pepper shaker collection is lovingly kept by my cousin, and what I suspect was her actual personal collection — those African violets — are long gone. To this day I think of my grandmother every time I see a neat set of salt and pepper shakers. And that, so many years later, is her gift to me.