A Saw For Father's Day

FTLComm - Tisdale - Monday, June 18, 2001

It is nearly a decade now since we held the infamous yard sale, we had graduated two out of our three sons and were planned to move from Melville and it was decided it was time to clear out some of the "stuff". I agreed with the idea not realising what a huge trauma it would create in my life. After all it seems a major part of our energy goes into the accumulation of "stuff" and to divest ourselves of an accumulation should not be done lightly. The sale went well our yard was filled with happy people, expecially two guys who went down the driveway laughing about the bargain they had just made as they wheeled away my yellow wheel barrow. It wasn't until a month ago I got a replacement. Among the other things that made folks happy were my cross country skiies, my chain saw and a hand skill saw. All in all we still had to store stuff when we moved but it actually was not until we settled here in Tisdale almost six years ago that the "stuff" I needed for a yard was discovered missing, gone in that yard sale years ago. I had two hand skill saws, one monster my dad gave me and another I bought in the mid seventies. The one from my dad went in the yard sale and the one from the seventies was borrowed by a son and will no doubt end up in his yard sale some day. So yesterday when I came to breakfast and was confronted with a new saw it was like a new lease on life. A saw, a new saw, I am no longer over the hill, put out to pasture, a former person, I am a saw owner, one who can cut, if he wants to, slice a sheet of plywood, cut off a two by four, make a concrete form, the possibilities are endless. Well not endless but there are possiblities and I suppose that is what life is about. A person without a saw has no hope of cutting, limited, constrained and without prospect. But give an old guy a saw and the potential for destruction is absolutely enormous.