Independence Day 2011 is just around the corner. In honor of the holiday, guest blogger Scott Newport shares some memories from last year’s Fourth of July.
Old Planks
Over the Fourth of July I went by a small, roadside flea market looking for old hardware for some of my wood projects. Occasionally at these fine venues I will find the perfect handle for a small box I have built. This was not going to be the case this time, but just before I walked out I looked up in the rafters of the old warehouse and saw a piece of wood peeking out at me. It was covered in dust and held in place by other twisted boards, a couple of strips of plywood and one old metal bed frame.
I found a rickety, wooden stepladder leaning against a marred post and dragged it over to the edge of the mezzanine. As I unfolded the A-frame ladder I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was going to be safe. The ladder reminded me of one I had been up on a few years back. An elderly neighbor had asked me to check her roof and told me there was a ladder in the garage. “Hey Scott,” she yelled from the side door, “Don’t worry, my husband bought that at Sears before he died. It’s really made well.”
I soon found myself on the third creaking step and figured it was now or never. Actually, never started to ravage my mind and the only, now part was, “If I take one more step I’m surely going to fall and break my neck.” Luckily my brother-in-law was with me, and he also started to get excited about the board. He told me not to move, and he would maneuver his way through the plies of “sale” items and try to push the board from the other side. After about five minutes of reorganizing the heap of stuff, together we were able to release the piece from its irons.
“How much for the board?” I gasped, now out of breath and heating up from the summer’s day.
“What about four dollars?” shimmered out the elderly man’s voice.
His wife, who looked to be about eighty-five said, “We may have some more boards like that buried in the trailer next door.”
I couldn’t help but laugh to myself as I started climbing down. The expressions on the old couple’ss faces were the same. Their wrinkled faces each were in competition to be the first to say, “See honey, I knew someone would buy that.”
It was also funny as the other patrons of the roadside shopping had glares like, “You gotta be kidding, what in the world would anyone do with that ugly piece of wood?”
My brother-in-law, still excited himself, pointed out another piece of rough-sawed wood, and I was out another four dollars. I dug out eight, single crumpled dollars out of my wallet and handed it to the cashier. My brother-in-law told me later she was the couple’s daughter.
We found some old twine in a crumpled, metal box the ol’ man pointed to and soon had the wood tied to the top of the car and headed back to my folks’ summer home.
When we pulled up into the driveway I was happy to see that Penni and Noah were not there but down at the beach. I was sure if she would have seen us she would have given me some grief about potentially damaging her car.
When she returned she never said a word about the wood. I figured she knew what a tough time I was having over the last couple of days. You see this is the first Fourth of July at Lake Michigan we didn’t have Evan with us. Even though she never said it, I knew she must be feeling the same way, too.
The two, eight foot planks made the 180 mile trip back to our home and by the next weekend I had beautiful plans in my head for the pine boards. I ended up needing a small stretch of redwood to finish the project.
In the end, I was able to build two benches out of one of the planks; one bench smaller than the other. Since the wood had a few nasty knots in it, four of the legs had to be shortened.
So really now I have a child and an adult size bench.
As you may know one of my missions in life is to teach folks about damaged unwanted goods, kinda like some of our children with disabilities. Evan sure had his imperfections, but I always seemed to look past them and focused on his beauty.
I know some people don’t see it that way, I guess I am just lucky or God has given me the gift to see the beauty in things like that old dusty plank, the one covered up in the attic, hidden away, seemingly worthless.
Where Have You Found Value?
As Evan’s dad, Scott learned to see value and beauty in old planks others found worthless. How has your experience with kids who have special needs made a difference in how you perceive worth? If you like, leave a comment to share what you now find beautiful.
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