The Hands of a Father

He never could use his hands when it came to car engines or building new sundecks. I remember one Christmas morning racing down the narrow stairs to find the train set – the train set that boys around the world make pacts with God about eating their carrots or putting out the barrels, just to get it.

Now the train set was mine. It was a setting made for a Hallmark card – the tracks circled the tree and little people were scattered about in my train village.

“Turn it on, Teddy!” My sister sang.

I nervously turned the bright red switch expecting my train to journey to those faraway lands that I had created every sleepless night. The train began to make that chugging sound just like in my dreams, but suddenly the train raced around the tracks in reverse.

My father looked at my Mom and then at me. He scratched his brow and then pulled the directions out of the box. The directions were as foreign to him as a French menu, and his hands fumbled during about six of our gift openings.

No matter what my father tried, the train went around in reverse.

“Why, Daddy?” I asked.

He looked again at my mother, a look I now understand. Then he picked up one of the little people and told me it was the train conductor named Joseph who had to go back to his home to save his wife and child from a pack of wolves.

He whispered words of caution, “It is very dangerous going in reverse, but that is Joesph’s only hope to save his wife and child from the rapid wolves.”

Every time I used my train, Joseph was saving someone new. I considered Joseph a hero.

But as I got older, I forgot about Joseph and began to get jealous of all my friends’ fathers’ hands. They were beautiful, callous hands. These hands fixed engines – big, loud, car engines. My father’s hands would fumble even putting up the summer screens.

One March morning I brought a block of wood to the table where Dad was doing what neighbors whispered about but I never understood – writing.

He put his pen down and studied the block of wood.

“What do you have there big guy?” he asked, as he gently placed his hand on my shoulder.

I told him our mission was to build a car for the Pinewood Derby.

“Dad, I want to win this thing! I’m sick of Michael Johnstone winning every year!”

We began to look for the tool box – a search that seemed to last for hours.

All night his clumsy hands worked on the block of wood. But my father didn’t have builder’s hands like Michael Johnstone’s father. My father had soft, bewildered hands that became even more confused long past the Carson hour.

We went to the derby the next night and watched the aerodynamic car with the lightning bolts on the side take first place. It was Michael Johnstone’s car. In my heat, I came in last place. Actually, it was worse than last, since my car stopped before it reached the finish line.

One Cub Scout leader commented that, in 15 years, he had never seen that happen. I looked down at the fresh splinter in my finger and thought of Michael Johnstone’s baby-smooth car, and then I picked up my block of splinters.

A normal child probably would have yelled or cried out of embarrassment, but I realized I wasn’t a normal child because I wasn’t raised by a normal father. I turned to my father and laughed. We both laughed with tears rolling down our cheeks.

My father grabbed our block of splinters and hoisted it into the air like it was the Stanley Cup, parading around the derby hall. We left before the two men finished their conference on whether I really should get the light blue honorable-mention ribbon even though my car hadn’t finished the race.

We got hot fudge sundaes to celebrate our last place/almost finish, and as we were driving home I said to my father, “I can’t wait to tell Mom!”

He glanced over at me and smiled, “Yup, you’re just like me – you love to tell a good story.”

I smiled back and focused on my father’s hands wrapped around the steering wheel. They were beautiful hands. They were loving hands. They were my hands. This I believe.

Thank you, Dad, for giving me your hands.