School’s door knobs were glass.  I remember the first time I felt one. It had complicated bumps and streaks all around it toward the inside. And each handle was different. 

In class, I would raise my hand and go to the water fountain. And I would go down the stairs with my finger on the wall nudging along like the needle of a record player. 

“Berle, don’t look into the chandelier too much,” my Totty would tell me. He said it would hurt my eyes. But my eyes wanted to see the plate shaped object underneath it and the nicely twisted metal coming from it. 

Once near my classroom I noticed a new light fixture, it must have been put up recently.  This one was odd, it had two plates. 

“What are you doing here, little one?”

I looked up, it was Principal Leib.

I said nothing. It was the third time he asked me the question today. 

Leib looked at me in the eyes. “What should I do?” 

I didn’t expect you to know, Principal Leib. I didn’t know myself. What should I do? I couldn’t get enough of the canopies and collars, the coffered ceilings, the door knobs. And how do they make them? 

When I came back from school, I asked Mommy. She seemed to know everything I wanted to know.

“Mommy, how do people design things?”

“First, they draw it on blueprints, Berle.”

“Mommy, I want to make blueprints.”

She paused. “Have you ever seen a blueprint, Berle?”

I shook my head. 

“Come.”

She brought me to the attic. She moved the big container of books, and pulled an old-looking chest. It was worn out brown leather on the top and the sides, and the edges had rusted steel. Mommy inserted the key and it clacked open. 

There lay a thick stack of aged Prussian blue papers. I couldn’t quite see what was written on the top paper. When I think back I see a faint glow around them. Elter zeidie’s blueprints. I reached for them. But a hand pushed back. It was Mommy’s. 

Of course she wouldn’t let me touch those blueprints. I had to look at them later.