Lessons from my dad’s garage

To really understand your parents, you must raise your own children.
When we are young, we love our parents, we get a little older and we are certain they know nothing about being a teenager, judge them harshly, and refuse to listen to them. Eventually, we grow up and realize the sacrifices they made for us and have some gratitude.
If you are lucky; you and they live long enough that you forgive them, respect them, and love them so deeply that you are content to sit on the porch and just watch the weather.
The circle of life is real. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Sometimes we say something and can’t believe the words that just came out of our mouth, because it sounds exactly like what our parents said to us. We look in the mirror and say, “Dad? Dad? Is that you? What the freak!”
I used to wonder what my dad did in his garage. He always had an excuse to go out there. I am older and I understand now. I find myself out in my garage more than I ever thought possible when I was a teenager.
The day my dad died I went into his garage. I felt like I was trespassing onto hallowed ground. He had spent a lifetime in that garage. He went there when my mom was mad at him. He went there because his tools were there.
He used tools the way I use a pen. He made things, he brought things to life. He kept the old truck running. He used to hide his bottle out there when he drank. It wasn’t hard to find.
I used to sneak out there and empty it. It gave me hope, but maybe if I was truthful, it just made me feel better.
I knew someday I would have to go in his garage and go through his stuff. I waited for two years. Mostly out of respect. His tools were clean from use.
Nothing of my dad’s ever rusted; it may have been worn out, but it never sat idle. It reminded me of the Neil Young song that says, “It’s better to burn out than it is to rust.” He believed that. He lived hard. He didn’t rust. He wore out.
If you ever wanted to get yelled at, just leave a tool out in the rain, or run a motor without checking the oil, or not have a shovel or ax that was sharp.
Handles of his tools were worn smooth from use. He used to show me his leather gloves that he wore out.
Gloves were my standard gift for his birthday or Christmas or Father’s Day. I could always buy him a pair of gloves. He liked them small, because he wanted them to fit tight so he could pick up nails and screws or spin a nut onto a corner brace.
Now my kids buy me gloves for Christmas and birthdays.
He used to tease me and laugh at me, telling me that I had never wore out a pair of gloves in my life. He said that the only reason I would need a new pair was because I would lose one or both of them.
He was probably right. My hands were not calloused the way his hands were. If you looked at his hands, they could tell you stories.
Now my hands have scars and ache and have bumps where arthritis will some day tell me the weather is changing.
I remember as I went into his garage, I could tell he had been gone for too long because his tools were not where they are supposed to be.
Someone had used them and had not put them back in their proper place. I picked up his chain saw with the brush hook.
Most people don’t even know why you need a brush hook, but when you need one, it is perfect. Like all tools they are perfect for the job they were made to do.
I have to hand it to him for being able to make things work. An engineer once told him, “Joe, that isn’t the way it supposed to be...but by hell it works.”
I think that was one of his prouder moments in his life. Sometimes I find myself fixing something that isn’t supposed to be, but it works, and I wonder if he isn’t somewhere satisfied to know that maybe I learned something in his garage besides how to cuss.
Not that he cussed and meant it, mostly it was merely an adjective used as easily and harmlessly as I would describe a red fire truck or blue sky. It just was. I don’t know why.
I miss my dad. I miss the way he would build a fire to warm the garage. I miss going in to check on him to see what contraption he was working on.
It was his therapy to work on something. I wish I had something like that to bring peace to my soul.
Out in that garage, I learned lots of things. I thought I was learning how to change a motor, or pack wheel bearings, or put in a transmission.
But it took me this long to find out that I learned more than that. I wish he could come into my garage and we could talk for few minutes.
He is probably watching and laughing now. Wondering if I know where my leather gloves are.