Finally, the story behind the photo

 

"In the interest of full disclosure, the smithereen in question is part of the left front turn signal lens from a 1995 Saturn SC2."  ~~Kevin Walsh

      When I was a girl, we lived on Brantwood Avenue in Elk Grove Village; our across the street and favorite neighbors were the Walshes.  One of my brothers dated a Walsh sister, another brother was the same grade as one of their brothers, I was friends with the little sis, and we all hung out together in the summers for years, even though our ages were so staggered.

     In his older teens/young 20s Kevin Walsh worked to fix-up, nowadays we'd say restore, a Mercury Cougar.  It was a moss green coupe and so pretty.  My favorite detail on the car was the bar lights on the back. When the turn indicator was clicked on, the lights had three sections that would blink one at a time to indicate a turn.  Blink, blink, blink.  I'd visit Kevin from time to time as he worked on his car, and I was particularly fond of those lights.

     Shortly after getting it road worthy, Kevin was rear ended while driving it.  I crossed the street to see the damage done to my favorite tail lights, and I remember asking, "You know, there's that expression, 'Smashed to smithereens,' but it's always plural.  Is there such a thing as one smithereen?"

     Kevin reached in the wreckage of his car's rear end, and handed me a red shard of plastic. He said, "Yep, and this one is now yours."  He drilled a hole in one end of it, and I hung it from my keyring.  It was about six inches long which made it a bit cumbersome, but I carried that thing on my ring for years.  Who needs mace when you have a jagged smithereen?

     We moved when I finished high school, I lost the smithereen a number of years later, and we lost touch with, but kept memories of, each other.  Recently, I got back in touch with the young sis, Donna.  Through her, I found Kevin on facebook, and I think it was he who mentioned the smithereen first.  In fact, he thinks somewhere he has still has a Cougar smithereen, and he also shared the "mystery" photo with this explanation:

"The spare car keys are on a ring with the smithereen there as a reminder to be careful. Of course, I had to explain the meaning and source of the word to my kids, so they know where the term came from." 

     I was touched my this, it's truly cool to know I've left a legacy by inspiring a cautionary trinket. 

     By the way, spell check was fine with smithereens, but red lined smithereen as I composed this post, so I believe it's now time we all work to add this term (in singular form) to our collective lexicon.  See if you can find a way to use it!