We visited Dad’s gravesite today.  It’s the first time I’ve been there.  I felt closer to him when I was in his shop, with his tools.  I remember how carefully he built his tool board, outlining each tool so we’d know where its home was.  I grew up with these tools, we built and created and tried them all.

When Eric was a baby, we saved every single Gerber’s baby food jar for Dad’s shelves.  They were filled with nuts and bolts and washers and parts and pieces.  Dad could build anything.  He built our packing shed and all the equipment in it.  He built the equipment for the fields.  He fixed things.  He had a mechanical engineer’s mind and could visualize his creations, then make them happen.  He was really remarkable.

Dad’s vice was in the center of his shop.  In my memories, this solid, strong, sure vice was just like my Dad, holding things together.

This bookshelf held all of our family books when I was a little girl.  It was one of the few things saved from our old house when it was torn down.  In the new house, this shelf was in my room and I filled it to the gills with my books, that overflowed onto more shelves I built with cinderblocks and stair tread boards that were strong enough not to bow under the weight of my books.

After I moved away, Eric’s former wife saw no reason for books in a bedroom and she took the shelf off the wall.  Thank goodness it was saved and put into Dad’s shop where it could be useful.  I loved this bookshelf and the books it held.  They filled my mind and heart with goodness.  Our home now has shelves and books in every single room and there is still not enough room to hold them all.   I ‘m so grateful for a childhood filled with creating, building and learning.