Legacy

The narrow blade sliced cleanly and effortlessly through the short cedar post. I felt as precise as a surgeon with scalpel in hand as I carved out the curved edge of what would become one of three corbels I’d attach to the gardeners potting bench I was building for my wife’s 48th birthday, at her request. “I like this tool,” I texted her simply. I switched off the shiny, new band saw gifted to me on our 11th “steel” anniversary and secured the final pieces to the upper posts, displeased only with the fact that, after a coat of weather sealant, the project was over.

I’ve always enjoyed putting things together. Much of my childhood was spent connecting Lego bricks to fashion whatever my imagination could cook up or cementing and decaling plastic model aircraft. As for the former, once a year, I still treat myself to the purchase of an “18+” kit, typically around my birthday. This year, it was the 1,872 piece Delorean from Back to the Future. I relish even the chance to assemble furniture kits, in spite of the frustration included with your purchase in the form of vague instructions and diagrams. Writing (i.e., “wordsmithing”) is likewise an opportunity to create piece by piece, though one doesn’t lay hands on the kinds of tools found in a hardware store. For each of these, the process itself provides the fun, though nothing beats the unique pleasure in thereafter admiring a well-constructed finished product.

Woodworking feels like an adult upgrade to this love of creative assembly, and I could almost characterize it as an accidental hobby. My wife challenged me for her 47th birthday to build a patio table, though I had theretofore expressed no interest and had demonstrated no viable skills with lumber. She found DIY plans online, nevertheless, and so I willingly gathered the materials to try my hand at a job I could only imagine my grandfather or father-in-law completing successfully.

When asked if I know how to cook, I typically respond with, “Well, I know how to follow directions.” As I dove headfirst into into the task, I found the project closely reflected this sentiment. Perhaps I’m oversimplifying since one does, after all, require specific, sometimes pricey tools for the job and needs to take the time to figure them out, but well-laid plans, which she provided, make a world of difference. So, after a couple of weeks of hot and sweaty effort in the makeshift workshop that was our garage, I proudly presented to my wife the (unstained) herringbone-patterned table and promised her a couple of modified benches to match in the weeks to come.

In spite of my beginner status, I completed this project alone, save allowing a couple of our kids the chance to tap a few carefully-placed brad nails into the surface. Though a solo effort, it struck me how often during the process I revisited moments in my early years when I was “voluntold” by my grandfather to assist him with various builds during weekend visits to their home an hour away. As I cut, nailed, and assembled the pine (a poor choice of wood, I would later learn, for an outdoor piece), I couldn’t help feeling as if I was channeling him and his long, self-made experience in handiwork. I had not considered it before, but legacy, I realized, isn’t something that is necessarily left behind at the moment we pass out of this life but can begin long before the end, anytime we may find ourselves alone and moved almost instinctively to act or think as someone has influenced us. All of the seemingly tedious moments helping my grandfather with the construction of a shelf, a shed, etc., returned to inform me now, when, finally, I gained an interest, and so there he was with me from start to finish.

James Raymond Tomlin, my maternal grandfather, had no such legacy left to him. His father passed very early in his life, and what few memories remain to him involve his patriarch lying uselessly in bed due to illness until the disappointing end. He had little or no involvement with him or his seven siblings’ young lives prior to this and was often absent, rarely fulfilling the role as a provider to the family in the mid-Depression era. My beloved grandmother, his wife, Frances, had a similar experience with her own father, as did, I understand, many in their time. They simply weren’t around. The reality, for me, effectively casts doubt on the myth of the “good ol’ days,” especially when I feel guilt about how I may or may not spend time with my own children as a “stay-at-home-dad.” Maybe I’m not a perfect father, but I suppose they’ll at least remember that I was present and available.

His has been a working life. Before he reached double digits, he took up his first job selling newspapers on the street to help support the family, a fact which I would be remiss to forget since he has proudly shared it numerous times. Schooling took a back seat to work for the span of his years, having abandoned it by necessity after the 8th grade, though he would, not long into married life, earn certification for his chosen trade as an electrician for Dow Chemical in Freeport. He retired as a foreman shortly after I reached high school and then spent his free hours not wasting away in a rocking chair sipping coffee but either personally addressing the various needs of several rent houses he and my grandmother owned or putting his hands to use as a carpenter in the backyard shop he and my grandmother built from the ground up themselves many years earlier. They were do-it-yourselfers long before the convenience of HGTV or the internet offered easy-access to information for any improvement project. To be honest, I’m not sure how he acquired his skills as a handyman other than trial and error and a few books here and there, though there was the occasional leisurely viewing of the latest episode of This Old House on PBS.

“Papaw,” as my siblings and I still know him, would spend all day on the task at hand, and if you were his help, though I’ve never been sure he actually needed it, the lunch hour might stretch later into the day than yesterday depending on his current stage in a project. It wasn’t always clear to me while holding something in place for him when he might interrupt his progress for a break as my stomach pined for a sandwich. Mealtimes were a moving target depending on what needed to be done, and though I never expressed my frustration with this since I loved and respected him, I admit that I get it now. When you enjoy what you’re constructing, “just one more step” is a challenging thought to put aside, especially when you can see with your own two eyes how close you are to the satisfying feeling of completion.

I’ve lost count of the number of projects he finished for others, but I still have a few pieces he made exclusively for me with my minimal assistance, never imagining I would ever possess similar tools of my own. Among my collection are an oak bookshelf, frames for each of my degrees, and a television stand/cabinet. Furniture may come and go over the years, but I will never part with these for the meaning they have to me as so much more than mere functional objects.

Just over a decade ago, my grandfather, along with my grandmother, gradually began the difficult but necessary process of relinquishing rights to privileges, some of which our oldest at 16 is only now earning. If one lives long enough, there’s a cruel ebb and flow to age as one’s body and mind return to a feeble state of the helplessness of infancy. The tools, the driver license, and other freedoms taken for granted by the rest of us are now lost to him in his mid-90s, though I’m still amazed they both have made it this far. He neither hears nor says much these days, but it is possible, as I’ve discovered, to gain his interest in a conversation. A recent visit of mine transitioned to what I was working on, which brought a smile to his typically weary facade. We shared a brief but satisfying conversation, one hobbyist to another, which concluded with his invitation to sort through the outdoor closet of the modest duplex they now inhabit and see what tools I might be able to take along with me since he no longer had need of them. I loaded the minivan with a router, air compressor, and various hand tools, understanding that they were likely to remain with me for the remainder of my life, if for no other reason than their totemic significance of my grandfather’s legacy of honest, hard work, now left to me.

This same visit resulted in a request from my mother, his daughter and only child, for an outdoor side patio table, which I completed at home with spare cedar soon after. “You’re already finished?” was the best unwitting compliment my wife and our middle could have paid me, which they did after a couple of days. In any case, I now find myself creating for others just as he did, as if taking up the mantle age has forced him to set aside.

A casual glance a year later at my first build, the patio table, would evidence to anyone I still have much to learn. What sections haven’t been chewed up thoroughly by our youthful goldendoodle reveal bowing and warping, not to mention a poorly selected and applied coat of stain. It’s still functional as a table, however, as are the accompanying benches, and I find myself nonetheless pleased with it as a first project. I’ve informed my wife I would prefer to rebuild it at some point, starting with a more experienced choice of wood that suffers the elements much better. That day may come again, and I’ll likely then, as now, I hope, proudly sense with each piece selected, cut, and assembled, my grandfather’s enduring presence and legacy.