It Won’t Be the First Time

Over the past week, we have finished framing and decking the barn floor, framed and sheathed two 12-foot-high by 30-foot long side walls, erected said walls, and even attended a Waylon Speed concert, at which the boys witnessed first hand the tragicomic effects of rampant alcohol consumption in otherwise sane adults (don’t worry: Not I. Stone cold sober for the entire show, though the boys and I did share a celebratory root beer).

We had many hands on our side. Michael, Blake, and Bob all pulled and pushed their share of the load. And lo-and-freakin’-behold, even the fellas chipped in a might bit. Penny and I long ago decided to ask little and expect less, which we’ve found to be a pretty reliable technique for managing our expectations. Besides, we figured compelling them to help was a one-way street to the particular hell that’s populated by bitter and disappointed parents, so instead we crossed our fingers and hoped they’d get caught up in the excitement.

So far so good, and it occurs to me that of all the benefits to building these structures, the greatest might be the one we hardly anticipated: That the process will imbue the fellas with an evolved collection of building skills. I am trying to follow my own advice and include them in all steps, despite the toll on my patience, from pulling diagonals to check for square, to laying out the walls, to calculating the number of board feet worth of sheathing necessary for roof underlayment. If I were half as savvy as I’d like you to believe, I woulda turned this whole damn project into a summer-long children’s construction camp, charged a whomping tuition, and then sat in the shade with a sixer and a super-sized bag of pork rinds, whilst your little preciouses toiled under the high, hot sun as I screamed instructions at them between dispensing bandages and initiating them to the sort of gallows folk humor that prevails on male-dominated construction sites. Alas, only now does this occur to me.

Joking aside (I was joking, wasn’t I?), it occurs to me that the failure to teach our youth such fundamental skills as framing a house is yet another shortcoming of the contemporary institutionalized education system. Yeah, I know, I know: Not everyone wants to or even should become a builder. Then again, pretty much everyone needs a place to live, and it seems prudent to me that children have at least a rudimentary understanding of how the roof over their heads got there.

I don’t know. Call me crazy. No doubt it won’t be the first time.