"Dad, why did you never teach us fine woodwork?"

"I never wanted to teach you something that would earn you good money.  I want you to have to go to college."

Dad invested.  He just didn't invest well.

I'm a couple of years younger now than he was when he died.  I still have that, shall we call it: thrift?

His version was "Why pay unskilled laborers, when you have unskilled sons?"

My version is "Why pay to have it done right when you can do it yourself?"  But only rough stuff.  I never learned the fine craftsmanship that delivered any sort of professional look.

After the excavation, grading, the slabs and the block masonry, he used to do it all, except electrical.  He could do everything else.  It just depended on where he was in the Cash Cycle.  When we were in a boom, he'd crew it out.  After a post-recession bust, starting all over again, he'd do it all.  Rough and fine.  There was a time when he was building the kitchen cabinets, contact-cementing the mica and everything.

But throughout he had captive free labor.  But only the unskilled stuff.  

We hauled trash a lot. By nine years old, Danny and I knew the Orange County Landfill as well as we knew our neighborhood.  Probably better, as we never stayed in a house longer than two years.  Our first sight of the Space Shuttle was at the Landfill, carried atop its 747 escorted by a T-38 heading to the Cape forty miles east.  Even in literal waste, keep an eye out for wonder.

There was no development plan for us.  We filled whatever unskilled void popped up.  Mostly trash hauling.

After our first recession liquidation (where we lose a house-on-a-lake-with-a-never-completed-fountain) we got a free month at our new rental for hauling the trash out of it.   The plus on this severe "downgrade" was that we moved into a large populated subdivision for the first time.  As fifth graders, having peers on the street was a first for Danny and me.  And I met Mike, who is the first friend where we stayed in touch after we inevitably moved on.  When dad passed three months before my wedding, Mike took his place as Best Man.  And Mike hosts us on his catamaran every year.   Gems in rubble...

Four years into college, I helped dad as we were being displaced for a second time, post-recession.  This time he was able to build a new house for us, but had to do it in a hurry.  He accelerated the schedule of the overlapping crews so much that my full time job over six weeks was to move construction material out of each skilled crew's way.  

There was never a time where I was not going to go to college, so not teaching us skills had no effect on me.  But maybe this type of work extinguished any thoughts of working for dad for a living.  Construction for me was manual work.  Everyone knows how hot and humid is, but it can get really cold, too.  "I love you, Dad, but I'm going to get a climate-controlled job."

Laying sod.  Manual.  Unskilled.  Probably my favorite of the jobs.  Start with dirt.  Two days later: a lush green lawn.   Obvious Transformation.  Physical.  The last couple years we had a radio.  "Don't Bring Me Down" was an anthem one multi-lawn summer.  When I hear that song, I always think of one particularly moment: Danny shouting "Bruce" and me countering "It's NOT Bruce!"  The yard was across the street from our second, better lake house.  I remember the big green ground transformer with the radio perched on it, partially surrounded by sod, partially by dirt, with Danny at a half-laid pallet, the house and lake right across the street.   I wish I had a picture of that moment, to share, but it's burned into my mind and triggered every time I hear that song.  Jeff Lynne confessed much later that that they found the German "Groos" to try to make it make some sense.  Danny was right: it was indeed "Bruce".  

We mowed a lot of lawns.  At one point, Dad built and held a lot of apartments. Single-level triplexes.  We had twin Yazoo mowers.  Big heavy suckers, made of lead, I think.  To turn them, you had to disengage the drive with your left hand,  push down on the right handle to lift the front wheels, and then rotate the beast ninety-degrees.  The right arm and pectoral got a lot more work than the left.  Between that and slalom waterskiing, I was noticeably asymmetric.  Not quite Fiddler Crab obvious, but asymmetric nonetheless.   Note, I'm pretty symmetric now: belly is a perfect hemisphere. 

I've never exercised.  Physical work and sports kept me thin and very core-strong without ever looking "cut".  Once I graduated college the physical work vanished and I never replaced it with exercise.  Until recently sports kept me reasonably fit, though I added weight.  And I think the organic strengthening of hauling building material through work areas, hauling trash, mowing lawns, and waterskiing built up an lot of strength that kept me uninjured in sports through my fifties.  I'm big and aggressive and have never worked out or stretched.   And heavy and old now.  So, I think I owe that sports longevity to Dad's "thriftiness."

I've always carried a disappointment that Dad never developed our skills potential.

I don't know.  Maybe if we had learned some craftsmanship, we wouldn't have done the heavy stuff.  I might have blown out a knee in my 40s.  Who knows?  But the fact that I haven't ever worked out, never have stretched and have been able to play sports with a childlike enthusiasm (that is: recklessly) for 60 years?  I'll throw some credit Dad's way - not that it was ever his grand plan.

 

The only time I remember doing some finish work was when we about 9.  The Taylor's house across the cul-du-sac of our first lake house - Dad had bought the land east of Lake Deborah, put a street in, and was building the houses along it.  He tended to be financing subdivisions right when the economy collapsed.

Granted, Danny and I were nine years old.  Maybe this was a bit early to learn fine craftsmanship.

Danny and I could swing a hammer.  Not necessarily well.

While we were decking the roof (putting plywood on the trusses), we were all on the roof:  Dad, Danny, me and Pat - his right hand man and a bit of a smartass.  I was hammering something and Pat aims some sarcasm, "Jeff you hammer just like your Dad."  "I'm THAT good?!!"   Dad is delighted by my parry, laughing "Thank you, son.  Thank you!"  That still makes me smile.

It was the Taylor's house a few weeks later that Dad let us drive the nails into the baseboards.  This was back when you used loose finish nails and a hammer instead of nail guns.  I remember getting a few nails in looking good.  And then one that a whack bent over.  I tried to salvage the drive, but made a bit of a mess of it.  It was late in the day, so we broke for dinner.  Dad finished up the next day.  And that was the last fine work I remember attempting.

Later, I mowed  Bob Taylor's lawn for $5 a pop.  It didn't work out.  Mr. Taylor wanted very fine; I was rough.

50 years later, I'm still a bulk guy rather than a detail guy.

I do like to work with my hands.  Doing something tangible provides a grounding antidote to all the abstract stuff I do at work.  But it's almost entirely rough bulk work.  It gets the job done.  Not necessarily pretty.

---

Finally a Fine

All my life I've loved learning.  Learn a skill now, and it will provide dividends later.

It's different now.  There's only so much I want to do in my limited Later.  There's a physical cost to doing work.  And, frankly, it's better to pay to have someone do it right.  No point learning something I'll never use.

Hopefully, no more big heavy projects.  And certainly never one that requires any fine craftsmanship.

Plans: haha!  Life is continually interesting.

We've had sapodilla hardwood leftover from our downstairs flooring sitting in the garage for over twenty years. Never knew what to do with it.  Re-ceiling the patio?  Not enough.  

We've also been for 20+ years passing a stucco entry wall to our house whose ugliness we have just accepted as a given.  There were some plumbing additions that the contractor just framed out and stucco'd.  Stucco ductwork.

I don't remember who suggested it (probably Leigh, she's mighty fine).  "We should beautify that."  Hmmm... I wonder if we have enough hardwood?  Yes.

And it's on!

It will have to be finely crafted.  I know this ahead of time.  It's our entry way.

Maybe I can do this.  Maybe I can do this right.

Rule #1:  Plan the heck out of it.

Rule #2:  Do not hurry.

Rule #3:  Do not hurry.  Most of my slop is based on hurrying.  In projects.  In life.

---

I wasn't thinking about Dad or the past or legacy or any of this as I started.  I was just focusing on the problems this whole thing presented. 

I knew I'd have to plan.  Limit the figure it out on-the-fly.  There will be dependencies and ramifications here.

I measured and modeled in 3D in detail.  I went through a lot of options, and presented Leigh with some choices.

Once I started the work, all that hands-on rough construction experience can in very handy.  The stucco ducting was far from square and all those details that always pop up in retrofitting popped up.  In a parallel with a current professional project: what datum do I use?  There's nothing square.  I can't use the ground (uneven), the walls (uneven)...  The ceiling is consistent for a vertical datum, but everything else is conflicting.

At some point during hands-on, I started thinking about working with Dad and the things I learned subconsciously by doing.  For example, I think my hyper spatial awareness is from carrying lumber through work sites.  You gotta plan your footsteps to miss debris and equipment while making sure the 12-foot 2"x4"s on your shoulder don't hit anything in front of you (which you can see) as well as not hit anything behind you (which you have to remember).  I am still really critical of people's cart positioning at Costco.  Really, THERE?!

So, yeah, as this project progressed, I became more conscious of dad.  This would be my first serious attempt at a project that would have to withstand "Fine Craftsmanship" scrutiny.  Would he approve?  Would he be proud? Of it?  Of me?

It became clear in my mind that this is that first and last fine carpentry project that I will attempt.  And, hopefully, the last of any sort.

At some point, this became more than a wooden facade, but a testament.  A gift for Leigh.  A lifetime capstone to the tangible skills I've learned (I have few).  A memorial to my dad.  A bit of a shrine to him.

It's (mostly) finished now.  There are some details that need some work.  A close eye will see cut gaps (nothing is quite orthogonal).  One could question some of my design choices. There is some slop.

But there is some skill.  From a distance, it looks like I knew what I was doing.

It looks pretty good.

I've done some big rough projects where I, of course, thought of him during it.  This one has been different, though.  It's fine.  And it's different when you think it's your last time.

This has been a capstone to some unintended, perhaps undesired, skills dad brought me.  It's perhaps the most tangible solid testament to his influence on me.  It's me, but it's him.  A swan song for me, a time- and skill-invested memorial to him.

It's not a shrine, but it's definitely a trigger.

 

I love you, Dad.  Thank you.  For this AND the good stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

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Category: Dad

• Dad
• Rough-not-fine