She done me proud!

When I was growing up I had this habit of trying to fix and build things myself. Most of the time I would make a terrible mess of things and my dad would have to pay (literally) for the consequences.




There was this one time I wanted to make a peace flag. Not peace as in "duuuude......." but peace as in a white piece of cloth that you could wave back and forth to the enemy when you'd had enough of playing war out in the field and in the hills behind our house. A white flag attached to a nice long stick that you could wave back and forth. A flag the enemy would be sure to see. So I went into my dads shop, found a big nail, a nice long piece of wood, and started pounding that nail into the wood so that the white pillow case I'd snatched out of the linen closet when my mom wasn't looking would be sure to never fall off. We'd tried the tying a knot thing.......it didn't work too well. We wanted that pillow case secure. Our very lives were on the line. At a critical moment you couldn't have malfunction.

I pounded and pounded and eventually got that nail in but boy howdy was it hard work. When my dad came home from work I told him all about my project and how tough it was to pound in the nail. I'd pounded in nails before.....I knew a tough job when I came across it. My dad asked me to show him the piece of wood and after turning it over in his hands, a funny look on his face, he sat me down, and explained to me the differences in wood. There was pine......which is softer and easier to pound in a nail......and then there was oak and this piece of oak just happened to be part of a desk my brother was building!

My dad then showed me a pile of scrap wood I could play with to my hearts content and that was that. Lesson learned. My dad knew I already felt bad that I'd ruined a piece of my brothers expensive wood. He didn't need to say anything more.




As I grew older I continued to meddle with things. We had this awesome riding lawn mower that by the time I started to ride it was ancient and had many health issues and needed constant mending. I had watched my dad several times take apart the engine and so I figured I could too! Many a time my dad would come home from work and there I'd be covered in grease, all the engine parts strewn around and I couldn't get it back together. Again, he never said a word. He'd either put it back together himself or if I'd done a real job on it, he'd take it in to have it fixed by the mechanic.

I'll never forget the day dad came home from work and once again, I was covered in grease with a massive smile on my face. I'd taken apart the engine, fixed it, and put it all back together again. When I showed my dad and saw the look on his face I knew, I'd done him proud!




That is why when my baby girl came into the house the other day and said to her daddy, "Daddy, will you help me build a tree house? I tried but I need some help" and my SM had me come out and look at what she'd been working on.....




I had to take photos of what my girl had been doing. She done me proud!