When my nephew, Barry was just a little boy, he and his mom lived with her parents. As far as Barry was concerned, his grandpa was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Barry was determined to be just like his grandpa!! My father-in-law was building a house on their land when Barry was just about 1 year old… just old enough to want to help. When my father-in-law was doing the preparatory work Barry wanted to be with him. He wanted to know all about the cool things his grandpa was doing, especially since he had no intention of going to school or anything like that. He was going too be far to busy being Grandpa’s partner.
In building a house, you have to have the right tools for the job. You can’t expect to build a house with a nail file, or paint with a toothbrush. The right tools are vital to the success of the entire project. A good carpenter has tools that are well fitted to his hands and to his 
way of working. He has a team of workers who know their job and work together to get the job done. Each person helps the others to do the job right. That said, Barry had his own tools. He had the little wooden hammer he used on one of his toys, and since some of his other toys included tools, I’m sure he had a little toy saw, shovel, pliers, wrench, and many other tools that he figured might come in handy in this endeavour. Barry put his tools to work whenever he could find someone to lift him up to the work area so he could get at it.
The home plans will always include plenty of storage space, because everyone knows that storage space is vital. Barry considered himself the Foreman of the storage areas, I think. He had to make sure they were the right size, because a storage area that couldn’t hold it’s foreman was…well, simply too small. There are lots of times that a guy needs to get into those cupboards, and cramped space in there is just not acceptable. So Barry was the 
Foreman and also the Inspector of the storage areas.
Yes, building a home is a big job. Being the foreman on such a job usually means plenty of stress, so one final thing that Barry learned from his grandpa about the right way to be a carpenter, was that you have to take time out for occasional breaks. So, every once in a while, Barry would find a cupboard to hide out in for a while, and the most important item to have in that space was the thing we all know helps with the stress of any job…the Folger’s Coffee!! It can be the only thing that lies between a man and his sanity.
Leave a Reply