Old Saw
By Paul Wilkes
This is a story of an old saw. My
father’s saw. Which is so dulled with age, it doesn’t do much
good these days.
So I took it down to a real hardware store to see if it could be
sharpened. "A lost art, the sharpening of saws," the owner said,
"people just buy new ones" … but … and he hesitated as he took
the saw in his hand – and looked down to rusted metal and wood
beginning to rot on the handle. “Best one made at the time,” he
said, with a certain kind of affection.
My father bought that saw so many years ago, in the midst of the
Depression, while raising seven children. In a house where a
bowl of corn meal mush with browned butter was a normal meal,
where bath water was used for more than one child, where my
mother not only cleaned our house, but that of another family,
who could afford to hire out such a task.
But, my father always told me, Butch – as he called me – never
go cheap on tools. You might not have every tool you need, but
when you do, buy the best. They’ll last longer and serve you
well. His toolbox – hand made of wood, not purchased metal like
most of the other carpenters – may not have been full, but what
was there, was quality.
In an age of disposability, of quick answers and cut-rate sales,
his lesson echoes across the decades. Don’t go cheap on the
important tools in our lives.
Tools? Well, most of us are not craftspeople, but the lesson
still holds. Maybe it’s a special pen to write letters that
matter. Or a spade to turn over the now-warming soil. Or that
copper saucepan you saw hanging in the store window. Every time
you use it, you know your spirit will soar.
It’s not that all of us don’t have to watch where we spend our
money, but I think the pure satisfaction of having a quality
tool in our hands is its own reward. And realizing that tool is
not going to end up in the trash in a few months and another
will take its place. No, we’re going to hold onto it, care for
it – as it performs so elegantly and well for us. And perhaps,
to pass it on.
So, I’m
going to find someone to sharpen that saw and that saw is going
to keep on living. In my hands – so pathetically soft, so clean
– as it once was held in hands strong and true, and with honest
grime ground into those lines and calluses. And I’ll feel him
right there beside me. |
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