For all I know, I may have been born with a hammer and screw driver in my hands. I can not remember when I was not trying to make or repair something. With the support of my parents I was always fixing, refinishing furniture, and making this or that out of wood. The only formal training was 2 years in Junior High School in Topeka, Kansas. I still have many of the items I made in those classes. Some I inherited from my mother as she made it clear that when her time came, everything

I made and gave to her would come back to me. It made it easy to make things for her knowing that what I made was very much appreciated and would then be returned to me some day.
    I remember as a little boy going to my great-grandmothers or grandmother’s house and going into their basements as they had small workshops in their homes. My grandfathers helped me to learn how to use many different tools. Later in life, I inherited my grandfather’s cedar tool cabinet - made from a tree that had grown on