George Kovac

My father was a precise and orderly man.  The top of his dresser, a solid highboy, held only three things: the keys to the family Buick, six stacks of coins, and a pair of wooden cubes. Dad set the coins out early Sunday morning, one stack for each child to deposit in the collection basket at Sunday mass.

The tops of the wooden cubes bore the inscription “Chips off the Old Block.” Each side had a recess for a photo, and so my father inserted a picture of each of his children.  My mother and paternal grandmother filled the remaining spaces. Every day my father would rotate the blocks ninety degrees, so that a new pair of children or mothers would face forward.  I worked out the math. I would be featured twice a week for three weeks, then only one day the next week.  Repeat. Always paired with the same sister. 

My dad never updated the photos, the family was frozen in time. I was always a second grader, smiling above my bowtie in my school picture. By the time I was an adolescent, I grew to resent those photos.  I was growing up, but my father still saw me as a little boy.

After my parents died, to my surprise, I kept the wooden cubes. 

My oldest sister turned 80 in April. Because of the pandemic, the celebration was held on Zoom. On our computer screens, my brothers and sisters reassembled, images of each of us occupying our respective squares, side by side, chips off the old block.