H is for handy
When I was a girl, I spent a lot of time with my grandpa. For the first four years of my life, we lived a few blocks from my grandparents, not unlike our current proximity to my parents. I was there a lot of the time - he would swing by on the weekends to take me to the hardware store. My job was to count out the nails from the giant galvanized bins, dropping them one by one into thick paper bags.
My memories of Grandpa are scented with sawdust. He had table saws and mitre saws and jigsaws for his woodworking projects, and there was sawdust everywhere in his workshops. (Both at the city house and out at the lake.) He loved to show me how to use his tools and would take time out of projects to let me make airplanes out of scrap wood, drilling and carefully nailing the propeller pieces for me. They always spun.
I wonder now, did he do that for me, or for himself? I can still remember the sideways grin he would give me when he would hand the toy over. Lily has the same grin, and it sends me back to his workshop every time I see it.
My memories of Grandpa are scented with sawdust. He had table saws and mitre saws and jigsaws for his woodworking projects, and there was sawdust everywhere in his workshops. (Both at the city house and out at the lake.) He loved to show me how to use his tools and would take time out of projects to let me make airplanes out of scrap wood, drilling and carefully nailing the propeller pieces for me. They always spun.
I wonder now, did he do that for me, or for himself? I can still remember the sideways grin he would give me when he would hand the toy over. Lily has the same grin, and it sends me back to his workshop every time I see it.
Today I work in a hardware store, but it's not a real one. It doesn't smell right. The floors don't creak. You can't buy nails by the pound. The stores that my grandpa took me to when I was little had all of that. Prudham's, McLeod's, Beaver Lumber. Totem.
When my parents bought the cabin, they inherited all of my grandfather's tools and the miscellany that comes with a shop filled with 40 years of this and that. My dad gave me grandpa's hammer a few years ago, and it is one of my most treasured possessions. Even if we don't need to hammer anything, I always make sure it's within reach when we are working on something in the house or in the yard.
I love rummaging through the shelves in the garage to see what kind of things my grandpa stashed away. There are vintage handles and hinges (circa 1950's), links of chain, mason jars and coffee tins full of various nuts and bolts. I especially love when I find a package of screws or finishing nails with a price tag from one of the stores we used to go to - marked at 50 cents or some other impossible amount. 50 cents will get you a couple of washers or half a carpenter's pencil these days.
I think that one of the greatest gifts my grandpa gave me was the knowledge that I could make or fix anything if I just put my mind to it. I have never been afraid to pick up a hammer or a wrench, and can figure out how things work if I need to. If I don't know how, then I can take a class, or read a book or just figure it out through trial and error. That's how he learned, and it's exactly how I learn. That, and just try to tell me I can't do something...
Today I had a customer comment "Look at her lift that! Can she lift that? Look at her go." (I was moving cases of 18" x 18" travertine marble tile from one pallet to another.) He may or may not have been teasing; after 12 years at Home Depot I have heard pretty much every comment one can make about women in the building industry, and it all rolls off me. I smiled, and kept moving tiles.
You bet I can lift that. I can also wire a light fixture, lay hardwood, use a chop saw and I own three drills, a jigsaw and an acetylene torch.
Look at her go.
Project 365-8
When my parents bought the cabin, they inherited all of my grandfather's tools and the miscellany that comes with a shop filled with 40 years of this and that. My dad gave me grandpa's hammer a few years ago, and it is one of my most treasured possessions. Even if we don't need to hammer anything, I always make sure it's within reach when we are working on something in the house or in the yard.
I love rummaging through the shelves in the garage to see what kind of things my grandpa stashed away. There are vintage handles and hinges (circa 1950's), links of chain, mason jars and coffee tins full of various nuts and bolts. I especially love when I find a package of screws or finishing nails with a price tag from one of the stores we used to go to - marked at 50 cents or some other impossible amount. 50 cents will get you a couple of washers or half a carpenter's pencil these days.
I think that one of the greatest gifts my grandpa gave me was the knowledge that I could make or fix anything if I just put my mind to it. I have never been afraid to pick up a hammer or a wrench, and can figure out how things work if I need to. If I don't know how, then I can take a class, or read a book or just figure it out through trial and error. That's how he learned, and it's exactly how I learn. That, and just try to tell me I can't do something...
Today I had a customer comment "Look at her lift that! Can she lift that? Look at her go." (I was moving cases of 18" x 18" travertine marble tile from one pallet to another.) He may or may not have been teasing; after 12 years at Home Depot I have heard pretty much every comment one can make about women in the building industry, and it all rolls off me. I smiled, and kept moving tiles.
You bet I can lift that. I can also wire a light fixture, lay hardwood, use a chop saw and I own three drills, a jigsaw and an acetylene torch.
Look at her go.
Project 365-8
1 comment:
Yep .. look at her go ! I love the new blog image .. especially the family pic in the middle !! H is for how glad I am we're friends .. heaps and heaps !!
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