I just had one of the greatest weekends of my life.
It wasn’t a weekend filled with exotic travel — although, I did drive six hours, each way. It wasn’t a weekend of wild debauchery — although it was definitely a guys’ weekend.
It wasn’t a weekend of lavish indulgences — although some things were absolutely over-done.
It was a glorious weekend with my sons — spent in a well-choreographed, all-out attack on a tightly structured construction project to-do list.
How could laboring like crazed berserker warriors on Red Bull constitute a fun weekend?
I’m the kind of guy who likes to build things. I like sawdust, paint fumes and blisters. I like the smell of an oak board, running lengthwise through a rip-saw blade. I like the feel of five hand-rubbed coats of polyurethane satin finish on a newly installed balustrade. I like taking a step back, crossing my arms and saying to myself (and to anyone else within earshot), “I made that.” I like building things — it’s fun.
I have been in the construction game, one way or another, my entire working life (I apprenticed with Noah). I’ve worn a tool belt since I was 19 (some folks think that predates the signing of the Declaration of Independence). Early on a gentleman whom I greatly respected asked me “What do you want to be doing when you are 50?” I was young and full of spit and vinegar — 50 was a lifetime away.
Another, equally respected friend told me, “You know, they’ll pay you for your brain.” If it didn’t require a lobotomy, I could get behind it.
Eventually, I took those two comments to heart and traded my tool belt for an education and a necktie. I found out I could get paid to watch other people work — and paid even better if I told them what they are doing wrong. That was fun, too.
However, I could never get the sawdust out of my veins. I couldn’t keep the tool belt off my hips. Friends and family have always known they could call on me whenever they had a basement to finish, a roof to shingle, or anything else that required a bunch of buddies, power tools, and a couple of cold ones. That’s where the real fun is.
As my sons were maturing into men, they didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm for all things deciduous and conifer. Sawdust did not flow through their veins as it did mine. I resigned myself to the understanding that they would achieve greatness in their own ways.
I was proud they learned, early on, the value of being paid for their brains, and was ok with them skipping the whole blisters and back aches part.
Then they bought homes and got all the fun of home maintenance that comes with them.
My youngest son, Jake, is 27, single, and owns a home in a family oriented subdivision within cheering distance of the Wolverine’s Big House. My oldest son, David, is 36, married with a child on the way, and can probably see the Buckeyes’ Horseshoe from his rooftop (ask me about our Thanksgiving dinner conversations the past few years). With home ownership came garages — and garages are magical places — and the magic happened.
Now, my sons’ garages are stocked with the best toys that Menards, Lowe’s and Home Depot put on sale, with a little Harbor Tool and Freight thrown in, just to keep things humble. Now, they talk about cordless tool battery recharge times, debate the quality of Husqvarna over Poulan, and brag about 12 inch blades on Dewalt chop saws. Now, they call up their old man and invite him over for a weekend of father-son, dawn-to-dusk, get-er-dun, sawdust generation.
This past weekend was one of those weekends. David, Jake and I put on a clinic and showed the world how it’s done.
It was a hells-a-poppin’ Saturday of full-on, don’t-stop-until-your-arms-and-legs-turn-into-spaghetti, laugh and work fest. It was amazing, exhilarating and exhausting.
It was FUN!
On Sunday morning, when I limped down the stairs and joined my sons for breakfast, David had a hearty (cholesterol enhanced) meal waiting, complete with hot cups of coffee, cool glasses of orange juice, and a big pass-around bottle of Aleve.
I drank my coffee, waited patiently for the Naproxen to kick in, and thought, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Larry Wilson is a mostly lifelong resident of Niles. His optimistic “glass full to overflowing” view of life shapes his writing. His essays stem from experiences, compilations and recollections from friends and family. Wilson touts himself as “a dubiously licensed teller of tall tales, sworn to uphold the precept of ‘It’s my story; that’s the way I’m telling it.’” He can be reached at wflw@hotmail.com.