Grandpop’s Shop

By Robyn Miller

I JUST RETURNED FROM PHILADELPHIA, the city where most of my family was born and raised. Many of them still live there, including Grandmom, who’s still sharp as a tack.

Photograph by Robyn Miller

My grandfather repaired elevators and dumbwaiters. He was well-loved, and since his death, his machine shop under the house has been kept almost as a shrine to his memory. My uncle uses the shop for small projects, but after ten years, not much has substantially changed: my grandfather’s toolbox rests open, his scrawled notes and plans are scattered all around, and even his smell — machine oil — is everywhere.

The shop was always a magical place for us kids. Grandpop would invite us in, show us a strange mechanism (usually his lathe), and begin to create a trinket right before our eyes. A miniature baseball bat, a Plexiglas lightsaber. I’d watch him shape

metal as if it were putty. Turn square blocks into curved cylinders. Nothing seemed impossible.

Then he’d invite us to try our hand at it. I was most apprehensive with the lathe, and would stand there thinking: this hunk of spinning wood is definitely going to pop out and smack me right in the forehead. Grandpop always stood directly to my right, encouraging me while I tried to cut my marvelous colonial chair leg. Overambitious plans for a 9-year-old, but I’d just watched him make the same thing with freehand ease!

Now, whenever I visit, I always go down and poke around, but not too much. It almost feels like he’s still there.

Robyn Miller is most popularly known as the co-creator of Myst and its sequel, Riven. He continues to work on a variety of projects and has most recently finished an album titled ¹⁰⁰⁰ Years and ¹ Day. Visit him at tinselman.com.

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