Sam Blasco
Member
- Messages
- 359
- Location
- Smithville, TX
I was told by my grandfather, I don't really remember this, that when I was about four years old I walked into his shop and said, "Granpop, I want to help you build it." He was a general contractor building an elementary school I eventually attended. He said he handed me a tin full of 12 penny nails and a long handled 20 ounce and told me when I could drive one of those nails into a 2x4 in two whacks I could "join his crew."
This I do remember -- one Saturday morning, after just cutting his grass (he did the riding, I did the trimming) and putting the mowers away, I grabbed the hammer from its hook on the white pegboard and asked him, "Which hand?" He didn't know what I was talking about, at first, but I proceeded to bury two nails, one with each hand, in a total of four hits. I was too young to officially be hired, but after that day, summers and weekends, when I didn't have some sort of sports' practice, I was swinging that hammer on his jobsites.
I'm still swinging it. That old Rocket hammer will never leave my side until I give it to my son.
This I do remember -- one Saturday morning, after just cutting his grass (he did the riding, I did the trimming) and putting the mowers away, I grabbed the hammer from its hook on the white pegboard and asked him, "Which hand?" He didn't know what I was talking about, at first, but I proceeded to bury two nails, one with each hand, in a total of four hits. I was too young to officially be hired, but after that day, summers and weekends, when I didn't have some sort of sports' practice, I was swinging that hammer on his jobsites.
I'm still swinging it. That old Rocket hammer will never leave my side until I give it to my son.