Lucky Son

                 What you teach your son, you teach your son's son.  That's the wisdom of the Talmud.
                 And so when my wife expressed concern that I was teaching my son's ( ages 11 and 12) how to operate a circular saw, I said: "My father showed me how to use power tools when I was their age.  What's the big deal? 
                 After all, I would like them to know how to build and fix and maintain things without having to call someone to do it for them.  This is what I learned from my father, who taught me everything from fixing a leaky faucet, to sharpening a lawnmower blade, to the gentle art of making a kite from newspaper and making it loop-the-loop.  (My son Jamie has inherited his grandfather's kite-flying skills.)
                 Tools were always a part of these lessons.  I still have his gun-metal gray Craftsman tool box, which he bought sometime in the 1950s.  Inside are all the wrenches, pliers, wire cutter, rasps, drill bits and chrome sockets he taught with.
                 There is also his Boy Scout pen knife, which he carried with him throughout World War II in North Africa and Italy.  Next to the knife is his sharpening stone, which kept the knife razor sharp.
                 He gave me the pocket knife when I was 10.  I took it to school to show it off.  Sister Grace, my fifth-grade nun at Saint Joseph the Worker, asked to see it.  She examined it and pronounced it a fine instrument ---- and then told me to put it away so it wouldn't distract from class.
                 It's a fine memory from the 1970s.  If a 10-year-old boy brought a pocket knife to school anywhere today, it would likely result in police, expulsion and media coverage.
                 I was taught how to maintain a car, too, which in some ways was as dangerous as handling a pocket knife.  Back then, car batteries required regular fill-ups of water.  My fathere put me in charge of making sure the battery was filled.  When I think that I was handling battery acid, I am struck by the trust my father placed in me.
                He also taught me how to gap spark plugs, check radiator and transmission fluids, and change a tire.
                At home in our carport, I learned how to use tools to make toys from scrap wood and to patch a bicycle tire tube.
                In summers at the Jersey Shore on the beach and at the bay, I learned to tell a yawl from a sloop.
                My father was unassuming in these lessons.  He was not loud or demonstrative about it.  Rather, he was a quiet churchgoer, perpetually attending Perpetual Adoration at Saint Joe's, and taking up the Catholic Charities Appeal collection in our North Park neighborhood for nearly 40 years, without fail.
                He never discussed these church matters, but I watched him, as a boy always watches his father, and I learned from these things, too.
                A few weeks ago, I took my son to a barber shop.  As we waited, a young father came in with his son.  The child was perhaps 3 years old.
                The father spotted an acquaintance, who happened to be seated next to me.  They engaged in about 10 minutes of hey-long-time-no-see chatter.  There was tattoo talk (they both had many), followed by car talk (the other man had just acquired a new one).
               When the topic turned to his little son, the young father said:  "The only thing the mother and I have in common is him."
               Then he griped that the mother of his child was taking him to court for more support, which he felt was unfair, given their tenuous relationship.
               After that, he took a seat and spent the next few minutes checking his phone, mesmerized, in fact, while his son wandered about the shop.
               What you teach your son, you teach your son's son.
               How lucky I was.  How lucky so many of us were, way back when.