Sawdust, Oil and Love

Growing up, I always had strong feelings about my father’s workshop. Dad made magical things happen in his workshop – from turning the rusted shell of an old car filled with trash into a shiny red (and fast) 1957 Alfa Romeo Guiletta that earned me the nickname of Speed Racer in High School, to turning scrap wood into heirloom quality mid-century furniture scattered throughout our house. It is a source of great pride to wander through my house and point out the things my dad made. My favorite thing, though, is the bookshelf he built in junior high woodshop class.

My brother and sister will tell you that I, as the designated princess of the family, spent most of my time in the shop with a very pointed look of disgust on my face lest I get dirty. But I plead the fifth on that one.

Even now, as I stand here in the middle of the shop wondering where I’m going to get the courage to empty it out, the smell of the place – old pipe tobacco mixed with sawdust and oil - transports me back to my childhood. When Dad wasn’t at his day job making rocket parts (he used to threaten to send us to the moon if we didn’t behave, and we believed him!), he almost always could be found in his shop.

My sister and I used to try and sneak past the open door, for if he saw us it surely meant we were going to get a lesson in whatever he was currently working on. But let’s be real, the man did logarithms in his head for Pete’s sake, he may as well have been speaking his native Gaelic to us. But we ALWAYS listened intently, because time with Dad was precious and I never wanted to disappoint him.

My sister once caught me kissing my first boyfriend in the shop and used the threat of telling Dad about it as blackmail fodder for the next three years. To this day we still tell the story about how we, with the neighbor kids, were rooting around the shop late one Saturday night looking for tools, until he caught us. I was sure I was going to be grounded (being in the shop without permission was a serious infraction at our house). I was ready to lie about why we were there, but sister blurted out that we were looking for tools to steal street signs. To all of our surprise, he said, “no, no, no. Those tools are all wrong. These are what you’ll need,” and sent us out into the night to be delinquents. To this day my mother does not know this story. None of us had or has a death wish.

The sound of my brother laughing brought me back to the task at hand. He said, “look what I just found!” He was reaching behind Dad’s workbench into the spot where he hid cigarettes from my mother. My sister and I started laughing too. Everyone knew about the cigarettes except Mom, who would have blown a gasket. The fact that Dad just died from lung cancer stung a bit, and our laughing died off. Then I noticed that my brother had Daddy’s little black notebook in his hand. All three of us stood there in a circle staring at the notebook. I think all three of us were afraid that somehow Dad would catch us with it. The only time I have ever seen my Dad raging mad was when my then five-year-old sister took the book into the house and asked what it was for. Despite coming across that black notebook on the workbench many times over the years, I never once looked inside. But the three of us always used to try and guess what secrets he kept inside. I very quietly whispered, “once we see what’s inside, we cannot unsee it.” My sister grabbed the notebook out of my brother’s hands and immediately opened it. She began to quickly turn the pages, and then looked up at us with tears in her eyes. She said, “the whole thing is filled with notes about us. Silly things we said, things we accomplished…” I was gobsmacked. Why would he keep something like that such a secret? I took the notebook from my sister, to see for myself. The page I opened to was dated June 30, 1983. All it said was, “Kathleen learned how to drive a stick shift today. I was so impressed.” Jesus wept, that day was a tragedy. Daddy took me to the bottom of an exceptionally long and steep hill near our house and simply said, “take us home.” Two hours later, I walked in the front door of the house with red eyes nearly swollen shut from crying, walked silently past my mother and sister, and went straight to my room and locked the door. All these years later, the acrid smell of burnt rubber is the first thing that comes to mind when someone asks me if I drive a stick shift.

The three of us spent the next hour reading and reminiscing about each of the entries. There were lots of belly laughs and lots of tears. Just as we got to the end, a small key fell out of the back pocket. Are you kidding me, Dad? It’s not enough that we gave you your “I’m Not Dead Yet Wake,” or carried out the practical joke on mom at your viewing that you made us promise to do. Heck, I’m not even mad I had to practically sit on the mortician to keep him from continually trying to sell Mom the most expensive casket in the place. But a scavenger hunt? Really?

We all stared at the key for a while, trying to decide what it might open. The answer hit all three of us nearly at the same time. The Tool Box! My father always used an antique handmade wooden toolbox. It really is exquisite. We understood from an early age that looking inside a man’s toolbox was akin to looking into a woman’s purse. You just did not do it. However, this never stopped me from staring at the contents of whatever drawer or compartment he had open at the time. All his small tools rested on red velvet and he was meticulous about how he placed them back into their original spots. The one part of the box that none of us had seen, was a locked drawer at the bottom of the chest. Every time I asked him what he kept in there, he would ignore me as if I hadn’t even spoken.

And now I had the key to that drawer.

My father made clear to us from an early age that a toolbox is handed from father to son, and that someday it would belong to my brother. I guess it is my brother’s now. It’s strange to think that I won’t see it sitting on the workbench anymore. That toolbox has spent more than half a century sitting in that same spot.

We each took a guess at what we thought we would find inside. My brother guessed nudie photos. My sister was sure it was going to be cigarettes. I knew my dad well enough, that it had to be something of value. Maybe not monetary value, but sentimental value. After all, look at what we had found within the pages of the black notebook.

My brother, the new owner of the box, stuck the key into the hole and we heard a click as the drawer popped out about an inch. I could see the edge of the red velvet that lined the drawer. As my brother pulled the drawer open, I could see old photos, papers, and a note addressed to the three of us kids. I carefully opened the envelope to find a short handwritten note that simply said, “I knew the three of you would be too nosey to keep out of my things. Being your Dad has been the best project of my life. And, although I frown on rewarding bad behavior, I hope the three of you enjoy this little gift I’ve left for you. I can only hope that you learned something from me, a couple of you took the long way around to getting the lessons I tried to teach you.”

At the bottom of the drawer was a stack of bearer bonds that he had collected for us over the years. The earliest dating back to just after my brother turned five in 1960. All totaled, we found more than $20,000 worth of bonds in that drawer.

The money was truly a surprise, but the gift will always be knowing that my father was proud of me. Well, and the fact that he taught me how to drive a stick shift.