Craftsmanship

In 1971, I think it was, we moved to a new house, very exciting for us. You see, my parents were missionaries, I was born in Nigeria, West Africa and we moved back to Canada, for the final time in 1966. I do know that I watched the Leafs win the Stanley Cup, but back then I didn't really care, after all I just moved back to Canada, I didn't even know how to skate! The builder of this new subdivision donated 3 houses to the mission. As my dad was still working for the mission, we got one of the houses, so for us it was a Big Deal. Anyway, it was sort at the start of the street and had a pie-shaped lot, with the wide end of the pie at the front along the street.
One of the things my Dad did was to build a small 2 rail fence in one of the corners of the front yard. Now when I say built, perhaps I should have said crafted. I've seen similar fences, guys have put the crosspieces up against the posts and slammed a few spikes in and, Done. Not my Dad, oh no. He cut rectangular holes into the posts and then shaped the end of the crosspieces to fit into those holes. But let me back up a bit, before putting the posts into the ground we soaked the base of the post that was going into the ground with creosote. He told me that this would prevent the wood from decomposing.

Well I drive by there the other day and, yep, you guessed it, that fence is still there and still looks good. 37 or so years after it was built, out of wood!
Here's some photos of it.

Now I could draw some parallels to that fence.

I Like

the creosote that my Mom and Dad soaked me in...

I Like

the attention to detail and care and what "Doing something right the first time" that building that fence taught me, (now I'm not saying that I'm as good a craftsman as my Dad, but he sure provided the tools...

There is just something about that fence, I like driving by and seeing the lasting physical evidence of my Dad's work.