Robin Writes: A can can be anything
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By Robin Garrison Leach
National Tin Can Day was last month. I missed it, along with most of the world, I would imagine. But the occasion got me thinking about the tin can (as we erroneously call it), and the many ways they’ve become part of our cultural coming-of-age memories.
If you grew up when I did, you found more uses for the lowly can than just as a food container. An empty tin could be transformed into magical toys.
Once Mom dumped out its contents, it was up to us to rinse out the smell of the food, to discourage bugs and critters from climbing inside.
Tearing off the label of the green bean or tomato soup can was the first order of business. The last bit of paper label was glued with discolored adhesive; a final rip tore the remnants from the can. Now, the shiny container was ready for transformation.
Every kitchen had an ice pick, and it was perfect to begin construction of one of my favorite can-toy memories. We snuck it outside, aware that it was “not a toy” and “dangerous.” Bracing a can between our knees, we plunged the tip of the ice pick into the center of its upturned bottom. It plunked through with a satisfying ping. A second can was punctured the same way.
Now, all we needed was kite string. And lots of it.
Grandma’s yarn didn’t work, and wire would be too dangerous for the toy we were making. We found a clump of tangled string, discolored a dusty gray, on a shelf in the garage.
The more string we had, the more miraculous our toy would be.
We threaded a knotted end into each can’s hole, and got ready to make a long-distance call. My brother Jim raced across the yard, can in hand, while I held the other and waited for the connecting string to straighten into a tight line. He needed to be out of my earshot, although that was usually impossible.
Once he was as far as he could go, it was time to test our invention. Pulling the string as taut as possible—we plucked it to make sure it was as tight as a banjo string—the oldest of us (Jim) got to talk first.
I watched him raise his can, and saw his pink, sweaty lips disappear inside the open end. He peered my way, waiting for me to stick my ear inside my can. Once I was ready, he spoke.
“Hello? Do you read me?”
His voice sailed from his can to mine along the tense kite string. It vibrated into my ear. I could hear him! Our tin-can telephone was working.
We talked back and forth on our toy, saying nothing of importance and pretending we couldn’t hear each other just a little bit through our opposite ear. The fun didn’t last long, but making a telephone from two cans made us feel like geniuses.
Cans became all kinds of toys. The boys in the neighborhood played “Kick the Can” along the roads that connected our houses. We used two large coffee cans and old rope to make stilts. My brothers stacked them to knock down in carnival game glee.
We stomped soda cans flat; they molded to our sneakers and we clopped around on the driveway just to hear the clatter.
And the older boys snuck into the woods, away from Mom’s anxious gaze, with armfuls of cans to “plink” with their BB guns.
From creamed corn to cranberry sauce, every can Mom emptied was a candidate for childhood fun.
I’m glad there is a National Tin Can Day every January 19th, and I’m glad I understand their true worth to the kids of my era.
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■ Robin is a freelance columnist who lives and writes in Quincy, Illinois. Contact her at [email protected].
