wanted : nostalgia in a can

there were no cookies in our tin

While perusing a decor magazine today, I came across an old amaretti cookie tin being used in a cute office for storage. My grandparents had that same tin in their house for as long as I can remember. They used it for loose change, and it was always full and verrrry heavy (especially when you're 8). Sometimes they let us help lighten this load. Everyone gathered around the kitchen table (wood, covered with a round table-topping "coaster" that can best be described as a giant doily, and then covered with glass) and someone would lug it out from its shrine under the sink. We got to plunge our hand into the jar, digging deep down, up to the wrist, through coins packed tight like wet sand and then keep whatever we got in that greedy handful. Oh, and it was greedy. Sometimes I'd get lucky and there would be some "big ones," as we liked to call them, in my haul. How do grandparents always seem to have unusual denominations? Thick silver dollars, hefty fifty cent pieces, crinkled two dollar bills, tarnished wheat pennies. I don't remember if this game had a name, but it probably did. Something obvious and functional, like the name of their street, Tall Oaks Drive.

Recently they sold that house and I never got to go and say goodbye. I remember every square inch of it. Faux brick linoleum in the entry and the kitchen. The muffled sound the floor on the sun room made. Oversized pillows on the floor of the den, shiny cotton decorated with old timey cars. Pink tiled master bath. Tiny brag book photo albums resting in the night stand next to "my bed." And boxes. Just little department store boxes stashed in dresser drawers. Belk, Bells, Chappel's, Lord & Taylor, Sibley's. The sound a clock made on the hour, the half our, the quarter hour, even at night. So many sounds and smells and collections.

So, I am on a mission to find some of those tins. Especially a tall one like the one they had. Ebay has not been helpful so would you keep your eyes peeled for me when you find yourself antiquing? I'll even pay you back in big ones!