When you're broken, build something
By Rodney J. Auth
My daughter looked up from the dining room table I built her and said, "Dad, I need two chairs for this table. Can you build them?"
I paused. Chairs are hard — so hard that I had never built one, much less two. But, I can't say no to my kids, so I agreed. And that was the start of my spring.
I found some plans and went to work. Like all projects, this one had it's hiccups — each glue-up and cut was stressful, and the further I advanced, the bigger the repercussions of a mistake. After a month of relatively steady work, I had two chairs ready to stain and assemble. They turned out better than I hoped, and I was glad to be done.
Somewhere in the middle of that project, my phone rang. My second youngest daughter yelled into the phone, "Dad! I found our summer project!"
"Yeah," I responded, liking the energy in her voice but worried about the next words coming out of her mouth. "What do you have in mind?"
"We're going to build a surfboard. Do you think we can do that?"
My mind panicked a bit. A surfboard? If there's anything harder than dining room chairs, it would have to be a surfboard. But, again, I couldn't say no — I liked the idea of long hours hanging with one of my kids in our garage wood shop.
"Sure," I said. "I'll take a look at it after I finish your sister's chairs."
