Monday, December 19, 2011

the shop

Dad’s retired now, and every weekday morning he goes down to the NAPA auto parts store. I think he’s personally responsible to make fresh coffee there every day. It’s a guy’s version of a tete-a-tete at Starbucks.

Dad has a huge workshop behind the house. He originally built it with the intent of making his own airplane, but at some point that must have become unfeasible. It’s a sweet shop. Expensive machines that do stuff line the walls. (If you’re a guy reading this, I apologize. You probably wish I could give you details, except I just don’t care.) From several places along the ceiling there are drop-down air hoses. That’s pretty cool, probably.

Dad can fix anything. He has an engineer’s brain, but he also has a creative flare that allows
him to come at problems from a different direction than anyone else.

So dad brings home strays from NAPA the way a little kid brings home stray animals off the street. They all have something broken that needs fixed, and no one has the part or everyone says it’s beyond repair. But dad says, “Well, let’s have a look at it.” And before you know it he has created a new part from scratch and the thing is fixed.

It’s the truth of Christmas. As the angel Gabriel told Mary, “Nothing is impossible with God.”

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