When I retired, I was asked many, Many, MANY times what my travel plans are.  Apparently, when you get the gold watch, you’re supposed to leave the country. 

Being rebellious, I decided to take up woodworking in my garage instead.  I figure if cats have 9 lives and I have 10 fingers, I have nothing to lose (to be clear, people have very much pointed out the flaw in that statement).  More to the point, the neighbors walk by here and there, comment on the poor work I’m doing, and then fix it when I’m not paying attention.

Which brings us to Gunnar. Gunnar is one of the great kids in my neighborhood. He’s unfailingly polite and very sweet. So, when he came home with a gold-colored skateboard signed by Tony Hawk, I offered to help him make a skateboard mounting frame. I had a blast. Working with him reminded me of when I was his age, working with my grandfather.

Their 2 room apartment was covered in “picture boxes”, dioramas where he painted the background and carved the foreground.  Flocks of birds covered every surface.

Gramps would come to our house, set up his band saw, and cut all the blanks he needed. I would tail around him, watching, learning a bit, and getting him beer which he would share with me. (No, I did NOT do that with Gunnar. But I kinda wanted to. Tradition is Tradition). I would give just about anything to have a beer with Gramps today. He’d take one look at my work, and then fix it when I wasn’t paying attention.

In any case, Gramps did ultimately let me try to do some wood carving.  Yes, we can tell that I am certainly NO artist. A comparison of his eagles and mine is provided as proof.

But who says I can’t have a little fun? 

And then she’d come back later and fix it when I wasn’t looking. I’d admit a certain pride that this is still in her room and filled with books and tchotckes. I hope that it someday gets to travel to her permanent home.

Gunnar and I did the same. His mom posted pictures on Instagram and got a bunch of compliments.

It made me think; it is not the result that matters, it is the process.  I wrote Gunnar a letter to tell him how much fun it was, and I thought of these things that we both learned along the way.

• Measure twice, cut once – Why do we teach kids to do things in one shot these days? There is not a hurry in life, so do things right.
• You can always cut more – Give yourself some room on a project, so that you can make a mistake and still fix it.
• Making mistakes is ok – you just fix it.  Yes, we had to do that a bit. Gunnar was the first to tell others that we had a mistake. And then he fixed it when I wasn’t looking.
• The best safety tool are your ears – Listening and following directions kept us both safe in the shop. He never complained or hesitated to do anything I asked him to do. He remembered everything we talked about.
• Have fun – The best part of any project. I had so much fun with Mollie. I had so much fun with Gunnar.  He’d come knocking on my door just about every day asking when we could do more. And yes, we would do more together.

Yes, those seem like life lessons just a bit. But that’s ok?

I confess a bias – I hate the fact that everything we have and do is somehow electrified and simplified to do things for us, rather than doing it for ourselves.  Learning how to use things is not the same as learning how to build them. I was lucky to have a grandfather that showed me how. I’m lucky that I have been able to work with Mollie and Gunnar to try to show them the same.

One of the comments on Gunnar’s Instagram was that we need more Larry’s, to which my wife responded, “one is more than enough” (and yes, for the record, she is as always correct).  Truthfully, we need more Gunnars. We need more Mollies. My time for building things has passed; theirs is just beginning.

So, Gunnar – in this summer where all things are Olympic – you get the gold.