“Observations from the Woodpile”
Jeff Yocum
Prologue
Observations from the Woodpile” is a collection of essays bundled together and given as a birthday present for my wife, Nancy, in 1997. Twenty-seven years have passed since the collection was given. The two main subjects of the essays, my sons Justus and Jacob, have grown into men with families of their own.
Calluses
When we first began cutting firewood as a family project, I bought each of the kids a pair of kid-sized work gloves. The gloves worked pretty good for a while. Over time, though, the gloves disappeared one by one. Occasionally, the lawn mower found them.
Eventually, the kids learned to get along without the gloves. The first weekend of wood cutting always had a fairly good number of blisters. The blisters were soon replaced by calluses. The boys were kind of proud of theirs. They were tangible proof to their buddies of the hardships they endured at the hands of the chain gang boss: me.
A callus is skin toughened up by constant wear and tear. Scar tissue sometimes becomes callused. I liked my boys having calluses on their hands. It gave them something of an understanding of reality for the majority of the people in our world. Unfortunately, callused hands are often associated with persons of low standing. Callused hands equal a callused person—an age-old, flawed equation.
A callused heart is another matter, however. Some of the most callused hands I’ve ever known were attached to a body housing the most tender of hearts. I want my kids to have the right balance of toughness and tenderness. They’ll need that toughness to survive the knocks and bangs of life. They’ll need tenderness to excel at the important things—of being a friend, a spouse, a parent…of being human.
Hot Pants
I confess, I’m a serious stove hugger. It’s one of life’s simplest pleasures. I often fall victim to a common problem among stove huggers: standing too long in front of the stove. If you’re a stove hugger, you know what I’m talking about. Your trouser legs heat up to burn-inflicting temperatures. If you move, your legs brush against the inside of the trouser leg, which burns. If you stand still, the temperature only gets worse until you burst into flame. Most stove huggers end up doing a sort of crab walk away from the stove. The trick is to pretend your legs are the clappers inside of two bells. You want to sneak away from the stove without the clappers ringing the bells.
The hot pants situation is like most difficult problems. Waiting too long to do something about them only makes them worse. It’s best not to stand too close to the stove, but if you do, walk away from it as soon as you realize you’re going to get burned.
