Dad Oak Tool Chest — **Dad’s Oak Tool Chest**

I have never been particularly nostalgic. I rarely pine for some half remembered moment of historiography in my life….where I imagine something…or someone…to have given me consequence or joy beyond what I currently live. And I believe this frustrates some of my friends who remember past events with a clarity reserved for savants. Who can detail every touchdown; elicit beer; or “score,” from what is nearly a half century past…while I struggle to remember some of the names of classmates or assignations.

This is not to say that I don’t remember at all…or that I don’t find meanings from the past. I do. But the only day that I can do something about is today and the only day that I can plan do something with is tomorrow. So I rarely look to yesterday other than to know….to know where I have come, what I have finished – or not. And know about change.

So strangely this essay is about toolboxes…or more specifically how tool boxes help to identify who we are and perhaps how we got here.

In 1975, my dad, who was already an employee, encouraged me to come to work for Ruger Firearms. Not necessarily as a career, but to earn enough money to pay down my college tuition loans and to buy a new car (that’s a story in itself). I resisted…because I didn’t want to work in a factory…I wanted to go back to school. But I applied and I was hired with the plan to only stay one year (some of you will know how that turned out).

I ended up working in the same department as my dad…the wood shop. My dad…a gunsmith, stock maker, machinist…came to Ruger by request to utilize his knowledge and trade. Dad brought with him to the job, tools – and a tool box. His tool box (or chest) was this marvelous masterpiece made of oak with tiny little drawers, green felt lining, beautiful little pulls and hardware, and a hand-rubbed oil finish. His chest was a throw-back from another time…another sensibility of craft and identity…it told the world who and what my dad was - a machinist - a craftsman.

With some acquiescence to the then present, dad also had this green metal rolling chest that was carefully placed to carry his oak chest with its tiny drawers, green felt lining and beautiful little pulls, from station to station, to do what he did. That green metal mass produced rolling chest, its burden, was to carry that beautiful oak chest like the royalty it was.

And me…? By some dark fate…or seed induced chance…I inherited dads love for making and fixing things. At Ruger, my one year turned into two, which turned into a lifetime. I was a modern guy. I could see the utility in metal. So when I bought my tool chest mine was metal. Mine were Kennedy’s. With their own tiny drawers, thin brown felt lining, forged metal pulls, and brown crackle paint, this is what a “modern” machinist carried their tools in. These were expensive…even more money than the Oak chest…because no one wanted oak chest anymore.

Now For reasons…dad would leave the wood shop and finish his career back where he started as a machinist in the tool room at Ruger. When he left he took his Oak chest to his new job, but left behind the green metal roll away. The following day when I walked into the shop I found “green” unceremoniously dumped into a metal salvage dumpster for disposal – It was hurt, scared, wanting. I rescued green. Gave it love and then placed my Kennedy’s onboard.

Eventually I would replace dad as Ruger’s master woodworker and wood machinist, and green and my Kennedy’s served me for another 20 years until my positions and my responsibilities changed. When they did, I brought both green and those well used metal tool chest home. For the next nearly 15 years they would be buried in my basement collections of what we all call our lives…unseen. Until now. With the need to organize my home garage tools I pulled Green and the Kennedy’s and put them back to work organizing the few tools that help me to do what I do.

If you look carefully at those Kennedy’s today…they live on a birch workbench that we salvaged from the bank where my wife works when the bank did an extensive remodel years ago. This birch bench/chest of drawers was one of the teller stations where my wife worked when she began her career in banking…as a teller. This was her “tool box.” And this would be her story…her Tool Box!

What’s your story? What’s your Tool Box?

Tool Boxs