Father's Day - lots of Memories of the Past
We all have fathers who have taught us something important, whether it is "what to be," or "what not to be."
My father gave me the ability to think on my feet, and never be afraid of being a woman. We can do almost anything a man can do , some things better...... He taught me to analyze a problem, dissect it, and 99% of the time, solve it. He encouraged us to try everything around us - 
sports, fixing our homes, building crazy things in the woods out of whatever we found, etc. Part of that was the times, after the war, and part was that he was an engineer, so it came naturally.
I can remember trying anything that came to mind, and usually, after lots of tries, succeeding. It was the process that I loved almost more than the end. I didn't realize that when I was little, but did suddenly several years ago, when I attempted to make a sand table from scratch - no plans! I had the flat ish plastic containers, and mentally had a picture of what I wanted to make. I remember thinking at the time, - just how would my father have gone about this?
To be honest, he would have made drawings... I just started with what my mind created. After several hours, my husband came down to our tool room to see what I was sawing and drilling. He's a skeptic, so there were all of the suggestions of how to make it so it would actually stand... etc.... I told him my goal was to create it out of what we had right there, and I thought I could. I did have to draw a pattern from the containers, so the top of the table could be cut with the jigsaw and the containers would just sit in there nicely (they were an irregular shape.) I used the bench saw, the drill, the jig saw, a little regular saw, hammer, lots of screws, and my imagination. I can stand on it, sit on it, and play with it....
Well, I guess there's a little engineer in me, because I had a ball creating it, and now it just sits there.....
But, my father handed me the ability to trust myself in anything I thought I might be able to do, and that it should be just about anything!
Father's Day - lots of Memories of the Past
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