THERE’S NO TOOL LIKE AN OLD TOOL
1/21/02
While working on the porch Saturday, my mind wandered to the days when the "old" porch was ten feet deep and seven and a half feet wide, my “cave”, where I did many a project, etc, including veging out on the porch swing, protected from the weather.
I had driven several nails into the cedar siding, and on them hung assorted tools, like limb saws,
lopping shears, etc, so that they would be handy for use whenever the mood for yard work struck
me.
That memory led me to Stephanie and Scott. Scott was a nuclear physicist, who did interesting
stuff with radioactivity. Stephanie was a lovely girl, a great conversationalist and occasional lunch date on days I’d visit her Jollyville restaurant when she wasn’t swamped with customers.
The first time Scott and Stephanie and their two boys came to our house for a visit, Scott was
impressed by the idea of the tools hanging on the wall.
We had talked from time to time about my designing a house for them, but nothing had ever come of it. Once, when things were slow at the office, I called Scott and asked why we didn’t go ahead and get started on the project.
He announced that they had bought a house, and he named the builder and the location. Lo and
behold, without being aware of it, they’d picked a house that I had designed as a spec house.
Occasionally, friendships have been lost and divorce proceedings have been started over the design of custom houses, so I was really somewhat relieved to have missed out on the custom work.
When My wife and I went to their new house for dinner, I noticed that Scott had put some wooden pegs in the wall of the porch, and hanging on them was an assortment of interesting antique tools, the likes of which one would never risk using for yard work.
Apparently the poor guy had missed the point completely.
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