07/24/2026
I’ve been building things since before I could speak - blocks, Legos, digging in the dirt with a spoon, and my favorite: my wood train set.
My grandma, MawMaw Zackie, would go out of her way to get me more wood train tracks and subsequently allow me to dream up all sorts of convoluted track configurations in her living room - and then tolerate them being there for multiple days while I incrementally improved the layout.
There was something uniquely special about the radically safe environment she provided the grandkids to be fully engaged with themselves. It was an inexplicable world within a world that was somehow both anachronistic and quaintly traditional, yet encouraging, and even honoring, of the strife toward creativity - two things that I’ve come to realize are NOT at odds with one another.
By the time I got to high school, I was building more advanced things like plastic models that needed paint, sanding, glue, and more patience than I could possibly muster. Most of them didn’t turn out like the picture on the box - at least not quite yet. My first year of high school I found myself given the wrong schedule because of an error in the office, instead following some phantom junior’s class schedule, completely separated as a freshman from all the friends I knew. It was scary. And the scariest class on the schedule read “Intro to Shop” with its room number, which wasn’t even attached to the main school building. And me, in my cartoonish ignorance, assumed “shop” was some sort of third world sweat shop where kids produced things the school required in conditions nobody talked about.
Yet when I got there it was just another boring classroom with uncomfortable desks a a green chalkboard like all the others. Sure there were intimidating saw blades and industrial themed decor, but still, a typical classroom. After a stern lecture from a weathered and goateed veteran, a man who was able to masterfully disguise ingenuity and creativity behind dull procedure, we were taken into a hallway which at the end revealed a type of learning environment I had never seen before: a woodshop.
My creative and hyperactive adolescent mind couldn’t take it in fast enough. There wasn’t a hint of kids being tortured. Relief. But more than relief - I was absorbing the idea that raw potential in the form of wood could be crafted into anything I could imagine. There was a station for every operation in the woodworking process, and every tool had a labeled cubby. The impression that space left on my mind was more than merely impressive - it was imperative I stay there and unearth the potential in that rough lumber.
After a few days, I did get my schedule fixed and reunited with my friends, but with one exception - I remained in shop.
The first project was to me, crazily ambitious at the time, a wall clock with curves and an overwhelming number of pieces for a beginner. But there was step by step process. And I was very bad at it. Horrible, even. I had to re-make pieces, sand mistakes away, and leave some sticking out like a sore thumb on the front of the clock.
Yet I remember the Why more than I remember the process - I wanted to give back at least something to my MawMaw who fostered that creativity. Her favorite stain color was golden oak, and thankfully the shop was already stocked with it. Anyway, I managed to get through the process. The day came when we were finally allowed to bring them home. I carefully made my way off the bus, beaming with excitement to gift it to her. She was thrilled. So was PawPaw. He immediately went out to the barn and came back with a hammer and a nail. They then performed the awkward dance almost every married couple does when decorating - the one where the husband holds the heavy item to be hung and moves it perfectly wrong a dozen times, until they eventually end up hanging it exactly where they both agreed before lifting it up to the wall. We put a single AA battery, and it came to life with the sound of that quiet rhythmic tick one expects.
The clock remained next to my MawMaws favorite spot in my grandparents living room, watching over every family gathering, until they both passed. The two items I received in inheritance were easily the most valuable physical objects I could ask for: my PawPaws hand made iron fire poker, and my MawMaws wall clock I built her.
To this day, the clock hangs in my shop as the centerpiece of my “gratitude wall” - a space where I hang hand written thank-you notes and cards that friends, family, and customers send me. It’s a far cry from the heirloom pieces I produce today, but it represents my Why, and remains my most favored creation.
