FD, IA - What-sit?

Any time you empty out an older home, you’re bound to find some puzzles. And, here was one of ours. 

Tell me, what is this item? We found it in Lug’s garage.

Doesn’t every house need one of these? Actually, there is a story behind this. When Gary’s father and one of his brothers were working on their mother’s estate some disagreements developed and the two brothers ended up not speaking with each other, ever. Before all this happened, the other brother had lent Lug this item and it had never been returned. At the visitation, one of Gary’s cousins told Gary that the other brother would like to have this item back and so, while we were cleaning out the garage we kept out eye out for it. Sure enough, we found it in the back of one of the top cubbies. Lug probably stored it and had forgotten he had it.

We have now returned it to Gary’s cousin who will return it to the other brother.

Can’t guess? It’s a nut cracker - about 1’ square and made out of steel in an Oklahoma foundary. Probably for those people like my grandmother who liked black walnuts. My grandmother loved them and would collect them in the fall, hang them in old potato sacks from the rafters in her basement so the green skin would turn black and gunky. in the spring, we’d sit on a huge rock in her back yard and peel off this gunky black skin and crack them with a hammer. My grandmother should have known about this great nut cracker - she used a hammer. What a swing she had. Hard enough to crack the shell, but not so hard that the walnuts were sent flying. The touch of a master.