My grandfather (on my dad’s side) has been retired for as far back as I can remember.  But he’s always been busy.  I spent numerous summer days running around in his basement, avoiding the pieces of machinery that he used to make wooden projects or to repair miscellaneous items that he’d found along the road.  Not figuratively, literally.  Stuff right off the side of the road.  If it looked neat, he’d grab it.  He passed this trait on to my father.

Sometime in the mid-to-late 80’s, he purchased a good number of acres where he and my grandmother built a nice house and settled down.  Since that time, he’s been “building” a workshop to house all of his wood-working and yard equipment.  20 years to build a workshop?  Yep, he’s managed to stretch it out longer than you or I could.  This means that every once in a while, he’ll mosey outside and against his wife’s instructions, he’ll lift something that’s too heavy, put it in a place that’s too high, and then secure it using a piece of equipment that’s too powerful.  If he gets injured, he just waits a little longer before he tries to put the next piece in place.  If he is fortunate enough to avoid injury, he pressed on with his work until he finds that accident he’s been looking for.  He is as stubborn as an ox.  But he’s very happy.

A couple of months ago, my wife and I took our girls to see my grandparents.  The girls played with some of the same toys that I played with when I was their age.  While we were there, my grandfather proudly mentioned that his shop was nearly complete.  We slowly walked outside to the building that he has made block by block.  He smiled as he opened the door to his little piece of heaven.  Nuts, bolts, wood, machines, and miscellaneous parts filled every inch of available space.  But what made me smile bigger than anything else was his ability to think outside the box.  Outside the ice box, that is…

Shelves

Yes, those are doors from an old refrigerator.  He’s bolted them to the wall to be his shelves.  I guess we know where I get my engineering skills.