The "Dad Face"

Dad instilled in all us kids a good understanding of DIY and would often ask the question "why pay someone when you can do it yourself?" All projects involved his children and we all learned new skills from the experiences. Some of them came by default (like me, at age 7, being the obvious choice for dragging wires or soldering copper pipe in the crawlspace since I was the smallest), and others came out of sheer necessity of whoever was nearest. Then there was the Christmas where we all made our gifts. I know there were economic reasons for doing that, but it has come to be one of my most cherished memories. Dad made two gifts for everyone: one "real" and one gag. My daughters have inherited the Car with Square Wheels that Dad had made for me. "That car is crazy!" was Sophie's comment.

Before Ruszel Woodworks was relocated to Benicia, it was operated out of the garage. One of my first jobs was to run out in the street and check for traffic so we could feed 20' pine planks through the planer. Half-way through the planing process I'd have to run into the house to catch the plank as it came out the other side, in the kitchen. When the shop did move to a warehouse location, we fashioned our own square "tubes" for the dust collector out of particleboard; it was cheaper than PVC. When the shop outgrew the warehouse and moved to a larger facility, Dad looked around to find a contractor to remove all the old railroad track that was dug into the property. They required a sizable amount of money to break apart the track, but they'd haul it away for free. So he employed Peter and me to spend a few weeks over a hot summer breaking apart railroad track. And Peter single-handedly replaced a few hundred broken window panes.

When Paula and I moved to our new house a few years ago, we upgraded not only the square footage of the house, but also more than doubled the size of the garage. That meant that I could have a bigger woodshop AND have room for Paula to park her car. I've been adding tools as jobs require them: air compressor and nail guns when we put in new hardwood floors, a new tablesaw when I was building cabinets. Paula has surprised me on more than a few occasions with an assortment of new equipment. It's an efficient, compact little shop. Of course, every time I fire up the saw I see Dad standing across from me, arms at his side, on his face a gesture of concern: gritting his teeth with an exaggerated frown. When I worked at the shop that face was present while I used any machinery and it really bothered me. I felt it was a gesture of mistrust. I've come to realize that he always trusted me; he just knew that the use of any machinery included some level of danger and wanted me to be aware of his concern. His face was his way of reminding me of all the things he taught me: watch the blade, stand to the side of the feed, always unplug it when doing any kind of maintenance, and, most importantly and often repeated: "Be careful!". While he taught us all to do it ourselves, part of that bargain was that we couldn't get hurt in the process. His gesture of concern will always be with me and I'm very grateful for the reminder, even though I always think "Yes, Dad, I'll be careful" in the slightly sarcastic voice of a 17-year-old.

Mom and Dad came out to visit a few years ago and he brought me a nice collection of hand tools. "Every shop needs to have these" he said, presenting them to me wrapped in a paper bag—official Polish wrapping paper. I showed him some of the things that I'd built for the house, including a new coffee table for the living room. I'd wandered into the kitchen to fetch a few beers and returned to find Dad laying on the floor, looking underneath the coffee table. I asked if he was okay.

"Of course. I just needed to make sure my boy built it right, and you did. Nice work." Talk about a big compliment. I started to tell him how I had to jerry-rig some of the cuts to get the legs properly tapered. I stopped when he started making that Dad Face...