Tinker Toys

Having dinner at grandpa’s every Sunday was extended family tradition. While the women prepared dinner in the kitchen, and the men smoked cigars and ribbed each other in the living room, the kids congregated at grandpa’s toy closet. It was a repurposed coat closet that was stocked with old-school, well built, simple toys that I recall smelled of wax crayons and antiquity, with hints of graphite and cigar smoke.