The Workshop Legacy

The vibration of the table saw radiates up your arms.  The smell of fresh cut wood is in the air.  The whirling distinct sound of a carbide tip blade ripping through hardwoods makes the home workshop a sensory experience. 

Your hand reaches for a tool that you first swiped from your Dad’s toolbox so many years ago to make a fort.   The memories are so thick that you can brush them away like snowflakes during a lake effect snowstorm.  Working with tools is a memorable experience.

A home workshop is a solitude place.   A person escapes to the workshop from the stressors of daily life picking up tools to fix or make something useful.   Sometimes the useful experience is adding to the scrap box.  Only your most trusted friends are ever invited into the workshop and only a few of them are trusted to borrow your tools. 

The home workshop is not a fancy place. It is as simple as a corner of the garage or basement, but it is a place where a person constructs turning thoughts into the product through the skillful use of one’s hands.  A place a man claims as his own. 

Even though a casual observer may see someone working alone, a craftsman is not alone.  There are ghosts in every workshop.    My wife’s grandfather visits every time that I finish a project reminding me how to accomplish a satin smooth finish.  I can almost smell his pipe as I begin to stain.    When I measure, I can here my Uncle Bill reminding me to make sure my “square is square.”   You are only as accurate as the tools you use to measure.

My Uncle Jim, never lost for words, is sharing his craft.  Uncle Jim was a true master of master carpenters.   I can hear the laughter of his son Tom.   God called my cousin Tommy to heaven’s workshop way to early in life.  Now Uncle Jim and Tom can work together for eternity.

Uncle Carl is carving away in the corner and Uncle Charlie is telling a story.  Uncle Ray is seen out the window sopping up a flowerbed.   Uncle Dave is inventing a mechanical solution.  My uncle’s and great uncles were true American originals.   They were always willing to share their insights regardless if you wanted to hear them or not.

The first person to arrive and the last person to leave when I work in my shop is my Dad.  Last Labor day,  my Dad was called to work in Heaven's workshop.  When I turn on the shop light,  it feels like he is beamed through the spacetime continuum to stand with me as I construct or fix a project.   Some of my earliest memories are  helping my Dad fix or make something.  I learned more than how to use tools in my Dad’s workshop.  I learned the life lessons that I passed on to my son as we shared our workshop time.   I can always feel my Dad’s presence when I hold a tool in my hand. 

My workshop may look like a solitude place where I escape from the stressors of daily life.   Truly, my wood shop is where I visit with my uncles.   The shop is where I relive all the experiences that I shared with my Dad.  I can always feel his presence in the workshop.  Most importantly, it is where I transfer the knowledge and life lessons I learned from my Dad and my uncles to my son.    Someday, he will turn on the light in his workshop and feel the presence of the men who went before him.

Note:   I was blessed with seven great-uncles and eleven uncles.  I learned value lessons from all of them.   The uncles mentioned in this post represent all of these men who went before me and shared their experiences with me.