Sometimes a hammer is just a hammer and sometimes it is life. In less than a year, I will be 50. An age many thought I would not reach, me included. On any given day, I talk to scores of people, some good - some bad - (the talk - not the people, although.....). It is during some of those banters that I learn the most about life. I was asked recently if I thought I was going through a mid life crisis. I was only so happy to say I hope so...that means I will live to be almost a 100!! People fascinate me and I am continually amused by the differences amongst us.
About three years ago, I hired a mother and daughter team to paint a room. While I suppose they did an adequate job, they most certainly did not do an admirable job. No putty, no sanding of spots - just paint. When I wrote the check to pay the bill, I had to move a hammer in order to get to the checkbook. Over the past twenty five years I had moved that hammer many times, mostly just out of the way, never for anything "manly". On this day though, with a little disdain in my mind, I looked intently at that hammer and said "why not"? I had never been a builder or a painter- I really had done nothing with my hands, except write checks. So with that nudge, I embarked on a series of projects - paint, landscaping, rocks formations and finally my latest achievement - an 8 x 12 playhouse. I poured not only sweat and energy into the projects, but a part of me as well. I am proud of what I did, but perhaps not for reasons you think. Oh it looks OK for an amateur, but inside I felt something - like I had done something and not just with this hammer. For years I had moved that hammer from drawer to cabinet and back again, a hammer once owned by my maternal grandfather, a man I never met.
During all of these projects, I would catch some ribbing from guys about how long it was taking or questioning "when was I ever going to get finished". I gave up many weekends of leisure - but I had a purpose. Someone once told me "I have spent my life making relationships and Chip, you have spent yours trying to make money" That one phrase obviously has stuck. Anyone could have built what I did and perhaps it would have been done better. What others could NOT have done - was build me. What? (you may ask). You see during those times of building, I talked with people, not about production, sales and accounting, but about important stuff - life, purpose, reasons - topics I had just let go over the years. I enjoyed long wonderful talks with people at the building supply, a few more chats with some funny folks at landscaping places, and even a few with the collection guy that picked up the tree limbs I cut. I laughed with them, listened to them talk about all kind of things, I got to know some of them beyond just a transaction of money. I talked with guys at work about how to build stuff and what to do and not to do. I spent time with my wonderful brother, who would make me laugh so hard I would cough my head off. In the end, I built some stuff, but mostly I built a better me. All of it started by me looking at a simple hammer, passed to me from a man I never met. So one day when I see my grandfather, maybe we can talk about what I built - but I will be willing to bet it won't be about walls and floors - it will be about how I did building lives for 2 little girls and 1 almost 50 year old man...."Now where is that hammer"????
