One sunny afternoon in mid-May of 1981, I was in the middle of framing a house in Fountain Hills, Arizona. I found that I had too many loose tools I kept having to throw into the back of the truck. I needed toolboxes.
So I cut up some scrap plywood and lumber and made a set of two sturdy wooden toolboxes. Everything fit in them, and it was easy to throw them into the back of the truck. I didn’t know it at the time, but those toolboxes stayed with me for a long time kept my tools over the years.
I just went through the tools and most of them are rusted out, mostly from the salty air in San Diego. The boxes were with me everywhere I have lived since and had their place in every garage. I think I never fully cleared them out and cleaned them up.
Now, thirty years almost to the day, I realized that I no longer needed those tools, and they were obsolete or defunct anyway. I didn’t need the toolboxes any longer. I used the same tools that built them to take them apart.
The old framing hammer that looks like it came from the middle ages, was shiny and new when I used it to make the boxes. It’s staying with me.
The boxes, however, are gone now after thirty years of loyal service.