Playing with A Hammer and Nails

I grew up playing with tools. I realize that isn't exactly a common past-time for young children. It was great for me, though. There were a lot of construction projects everywhere I turned at my home in Louisiana. To this day, I love watching the construction process, probably because it was a game when I was a child.

Once, in my adult life, I was camping with friends. As I was constructing a tent, I was using a hammer to pound stakes into the ground. One of the 5-year-old boys on the trip with us was watching me, and I gave him the hammer to help.

He certainly didn't choose to mimic me. I think he had road construction on his mind. He used the claw side to dig out roadways and just pounded the dirt every-so-often.

Eventually, his father came around and was shocked that the boy was playing with something that could swing toward his face too hard and do some serious damage. The dad asks, "You thought that was the right toy for a 5-year-old?" I honestly replied "Yeah." I looked up at him, saw the thoughts passing across his face as he assessed the scene. I took a moment to appreciate the unusualness of the situation for a person who hadn't grown up playing with tools and smiled to myself.

I wonder if that day made it into that child's core memories. Looking back on my formative years, I think about how my childhood home grew up as we grew up. I have a lot of photographic memories of holding tools, hammering nails into boards, installing sheetrock, climbing into the tiniest crawl spaces, watching my home change it's form across the years, and laughing with family.