Like Father, Like Son

It seems that my 14-year-old son, Neil, has inherited his father's skilled hands.

I am so impressed with Neil these days. In addition to being fairly emotionally mature for a 14-year-old (he'll be 15 in December), he is becoming quite a skilled handyperson. The photos above show what he did today for my husband, Ed: repairing our wooden utility trailer.

Ed uses this trailer to transport equipment from his cabinetmaking shop and cabinetry when it won't fit into our van even with the back seats removed. Periodically, Ed has to replace sections of the trailer even though by this point in its life, most sections are made from less-likely-to-rot pressure-treated plywood—because sometimes it sits outdoors, holding tree and bush cutoffs from our yard until it's full enough to be emptied at the town dump, exposing it to rot-inducing dampness.

Right now, Ed has absolutely no time to fix the trailer because he has a small cabinetmaking project going on in addition to his usual two days a week driving a truck for a company that delivers groceries to individual customers. But he'll need the trailer soon to transport a refinished cabinet to a customer in the Hamptons. So after Ed provided instructions this morning, it was Neil to the rescue. Neil has just now finished, doing it all without supervision because Ed was off delivering groceries. I'm so proud of both the work Neil has done and his attitude about it. We're not able to pay him anything for this, yet he happily worked away, probably because our pride in him fueled him.

It's so great to have two very handy guys in the house!


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