Donovan Kelly

My father was a craftsman. I am not. I am klutzman, son of craftsman. I passed on no love of tools to our son. Mike’s joy in turning what is broken into what is working did not come from me.

He should thank the genes of his grandads, blue-collar machine operators who could repair and make anything. Despite me, Mike somehow became a handyman who people trust and ask to fix things. Years ago, he wisely took away my power tools and put his own lock on the tool chest my Dad had left behind. Just as well. For too long, I had used the power of tools for evil. No birdhouse touched by me has ever stood straight and strong. Leaky faucets leaked faster and good lawnmowers died young.

Have stories, will spoon feed.

Sure it hurts to be out-handied by my son. Am I not a man? Do I not yearn to wear a tool belt and to walk upright in hardware stores? Sure I do, but mostly I just don't care. Give me your broken chairs, your lamps yearning to burn bright. I’ll stick them in the attic with all the other huddled broken masses.

When Mike was a young teenager, the support arm broke on our clothes pole. My wife looked past me to Mike and said, "Can you fix it?" Of course he could. Years later I stared at the pole, still held together by one of my father's C-clamps. I shuddered at the rust the clamp has accumulated. Dad would not approve.

Even worse, the clamp still carried the dot of red paint that Dad put on his special tools, a red dot of warning to his children that this was a tool too good to be used by mere kids. Dad’s workbench was filled with red-dotted first-class tools reserved for him alone. We kids could only use the unmarked tools, the broken-claw hammers, the blunt screwdrivers, and the pliers whose jaws would never again close.

The clothes pole was fixed, but I shuddered at the rust on the sacred red-dotted clamp. And maybe in that shudder lies all the difference. Mike was never told that he was not a fixer. He assumed free access to try all tools, red-dotted or not. Like a young reader let loose in a big 1ibrary, he had experimented, grown and soared on his own to become a book lover, a fixing lover.

Sorry, Dad, about the rust on your good C-clamp. But at least you know your toolbox is working again and in better hands than mine. Spare our son your red-dotted wrath. He's the only handyman we have left. And Happy Father’s Day.