How to Make a Fence

                          My Father was a very well educated man.

   And not in the liberal arts. He was a geologist. He participated in the International Geological Year in 1955. IGY for short. Google it ... he's there. He went on to learn electronics and telemetry and was the fix 'em up guy for the Observatory at Mt. Palomar. So, you can know this, he was a smart man.

   Working with his hands was not his strong suit. In fact, he would brag about having no callouses on his hands and flip me shit for having them.

   But, as life is wont to do, occasionally he had to work with his hands. One time he had to build a fence. Nothing huge or ornate, but it was HIS fence, his monument. He started out digging post holes and stringing line to make sure it was all in line. He went to the lumberyard and got the materials. Each fence post was an 8' foot 4X4.

                            The fence only needed to be a bit over 6 foot.

   He had precisely dug each hole to 2'. But dirt can be a bit unexact. So, when it came time to 'set' the posts, he would stick it in the post hole and measure from the ground up to see if he had 6'.

   If it was too tall, he'd dig some more. If it was too short, he'd toss in some gravel.

        My little brother, maybe 5 at the time, watched this go on for a half day.

   Pop putting the post in and out and adding or subtracting from the hole so it was 6'.

         Needless to say, those fence posts took some serious time to plant.

   My little brother said ...

.

  'Poppa? Why don't you put all the posts in the holes and CUT THEM OFF'?

   I wasn't there to see the look on my Father's face when he heard that. Legend has it, that he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at my 5 year old brother for a good long time.

                               The fence went up much quicker then.

Comments

[Amy]

Great story, Steel.

You should have a little column just for stories like this - so we could all tell how our kids have showed us up.

[Steel]

That WOULD make a cool blog.

[mdmhvonpa]

:) ... Good fences make good neighbors, eh? And as from your brother ... mouths of babes. I wish I could find a pic of my son 'helping' me with the Twin Towers that I put up.

[Amy]

ooh. Thanks for using the word 'brother', Mark. Made me realize it's my brother's birthday today.

[Amy]

When Parker was little, his favorite things were Legos and Matchbox cars. He had a zillion of the cars. As he grew up and realized Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were not 'real', we kept the notion of the Sandman going for one reason. Parker would leave a couple of matchbox cars on his dresser every night, and one of us would go in and move them and tell him the Sandman did it. He loved it. It just amazed him and it made him feel as if he was being watched over at night. That's how we'd set the Sandman up - as a loving, watchful entity whose sole purpose was to love Parker. To show Parker the Sandman was watching, we used the cars. This went on for years, and sometimes we'd get into bed and be half asleep and one of us would say..."Did you play Sandman???" Chip invariably got up and went to move the cars.

One day Chip was driving a pile of Parker's friends somewhere and he listened as the boys discussed that Santa, the Easter Bunny and a few other fantasy characters were not real. The discussion was quite serious with all the boys agreeing and feeling all grown-up that they 'knew'. Then Chip heard Parker say very adamantly that NO... the Sandman was...... and that's as far as he got. Chip said he could NOT let his son get laughed at under these precocious circumstances, so he blurted out something to interrupt Parker. He says to this day he has no idea what he said, but whatever came out managed to turn the tide of the conversation and to save our little angel's pride. We kept up the Sandman car maneuvers until Parker hinted that he knew...

I think the secret love each night of the Sandman's visit did a lot to make night a haven for Parker. Every morning he'd rush in to tell us the Sandman had come. Such sweet joy!

[Steel]

Okay.

That's it Amy.

I will show you how to post here when you get here.

I will not take 'no' for an answer.

Don't buck me on this one honey. Don't do it.

Trust me.

[Amy]

Never. I'm too shy.