Bridle Leather and Bestefar

"How long have you had that belt?" the salesman said. "Since high school?"

I am sure he was complimenting me on the endurance of the belt, and not on my style sense. I bought another. "Bridle leather", it said. The stitching along the edges sewed the two layers together.

The salesman assured me that the belt would hold me in and my pants up.

Oh, my! About seventy years ago, I sat next to my grandfather, Jonas Jacobson, while he stitched together layers of heavy leather to make, not a bridle, but a tug for a horse's harness. I think there were three layers of heavy cowhide in those tugs, intended to reach from the horse's collar back to the singletree; one on each side of the horse. Grandpa is long-since gone, and his youngest son just died, too; more than ninety years old. But I suspect that somewhere on what remains of his farm, if the roof did not leak, there are probably still some bridles, or tugs with hand stitches along the sides. They are cleaning out the bench that stood in his bedroom, where he cut leather, and stitched it, sometimes for harnesses, or for shoe soles.

I have been reading old letters, written in 1909, to my grandfather. "Snille Jonas," one began: it it had been in English, and were from upstairs in a manor, it might be translated, "My Good Jonas", but that would be too grand for a shoemaker/blacksmith/farmer from Trondelag. It would be apt, but he would have denied it.

I sat this morning with an Android phone, trying to make it behave, while it spat at the wireless network in the coffee shop. I would rather know leather. But I have read, "The Death of a Salesman", and there is small joy in being the last harness maker.

But there is great joy in having known one; in having sat, young, fascinated, and called him, "Bestefar". I think that has something to do with the belt I chose. "Bridle leather," it said.

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