I remember the childhood pain caused by suffering through performances of The Nutcracker and always associated it with the scolding I got for trying to use my family’s decorative nutcracker to actually crack a nut. The heirloom’s broken jaw never recovered despite hot glue treatments.
After that experience, I never liked nutcrackers. But a trip to see one of the world’s largest nutcracker collections, in a Seguin museum, helped me realize I had more to learn about one of the world’s oldest tools. Read the story here: https://bit.ly/3GdGb0T