When I was a kid, the neighbor 2 doors down had a shop/ small store behind the house with access to a side lane, same lane I still reside at, and in the shop was some( I did not know much about them at the time) turn of the century gasoline industrial engines, ( I have photos) meticulously restored and or maintained. One was a big General Electric, that powered the draw bridge over the nearby Hudson river, I took photos of everything when they had the auction, after his wife passed in '98.
Back to the point, Mr. Miller was just a genuinely great neighbor and a great friend of any kid interested in anything mechanical, I'll never forget him, as good neighbor, friend etc., I've often wished I could have gotten to have known him longer, he passed in '90.
In his shop, and I noticed this when I was a kid, was a giant nut, back then it was huge to a young kid like I was, thinking of all the things with nuts and bolts, nothing was even near the size of this one, and for some reason I marveled at it everytime I saw it. Many years later, just after his wife, "Pal" passed away, the neighbor to the left, daughter, was left with the estate and the disposal of same. In conversation with Elsa, about the Millers, I had mentioned my childhood memories of this giant nut, + many other things, she knew the previous owners of our farm and it was a great thing to have met and spoke with her as her parents were actually the neighbors to the left and I never had met her before.
The following Christmas, I went up the road to another friends, a small gathering of friends, exchange a few gifts, socialize, few drinks etc. Well my friend hands me this box, with a greeting card on it and says it's heavy, real heavy, so use care. I'm clueless, like what kind of prank is this..... ? LOL. Well you know, in that box was that giant nut from Lou's shop, and in the card was 2 old photos of our farm long before we owned it. Elsa had contacted and gave my best friend these gifts, as at the time I worked out of town and was not home often, what a surprise, what a great surprise, to have something from Lou's shop, as the things he had that were auctioned were very rare, unique and valuable, but this nut, was something no one was interested in and probably would have been scrapped or in the dumpster. All those years later, looking at the nut, does not seem as big as when I first saw it, but I just measured it, 5 1/2" across, and it's blank, no threads. It did have a purpose though, in Lou's shop it was a counterweight rigged to a chain, for a sliding door, as I recall, I have the chain too, kind of a silly thing, you can't imagine the expression on my face when I opened the box, was priceless, just like Lou was to all us kids back then, they never had any children, but were the kindest people, I only have 1 neighbor left from those days, nicest people you could ever know, seems that was a lot more common years back. I should scan the photos from his place, so glad I took those for the scrapbook.
