My dad and my boys

One of the distinct memories of my growing up years was hanging laundry on the clothesline in the summer.  I mostly spent my summers working as a waitress and I'd work in the afternoons and evenings.  Mid-morning I'd stagger around, bleary eyed and my mom would send my sisters and me outside with a basket of laundry to hang on the line.  My dad would be in his shop, making magic:

He also listened to big band music on his radio.  All the windows and the door of his shop would be open in the summer sunshine and it was the backdrop to our laundry duties.  He would call some cheerful greeting to us and we would grumble something back because we were tired teenagers.

Every once in awhile he'd drop something or hit his thumb or who knows what and we'd hear him yell, "Damn! Damn! Damn!" and we might look at each other with wide eyes and contained mirth but we wouldn't say anything because even tired teenagers aren't that stupid.

Last weekend, Braeden found a station on itunes radio that tickled his fancy.  He piped it through the house and turned it up.

It was big band music.  From the 40s.  I felt like I should be hanging clothes in the sunshine.

I cut Mark's hair awhile ago and every time it's short, he looks exactly like pictures I've seen of my dad at that age.  It's alarming to turn around and see your dad when he was a kid.

Also, while I read to Mark during school, he does things like this:

Mark made a helmet (wooden blocks) for Horace and then knighted him and gave him a (butter knife) sword and a (coaster) shield.  Sir Horace of the Barntable.

Mark had a different...medium...than my dad, but his creative making-something-with-what-he-has-on-hand is something in his genetic makeup that came with the name Mark.

My boys live far away from their grandpa and they didn't purposefully set out to be like him in these ways, it just delights me that they are.

They could do a lot worse.