Sean Ackerman said:
Maybe this can stir up some interesting stories?
Don't know if it's interesting or not, but here's one of my stories.
Our family lived in Montreal until I turned 12 years of age. My father had a workshop in the basement and he was always building things. I spent considerable time in that workshop. I remember how patient he was with me. In my earlier years, I distinctly remember scribbling all over a wall unit he built. I can also remember opening paint cans with chisels and breaking the tips off them. Never a word in anger. There must have been dozens of other things I did that I should have been punished for, but I can't remember him shouting at me even once, back then.
Fast forward thirty years later. We had moved to Toronto and my family lived in my Grandmother's farm house. Built 1825 and set in the back of a double lot, the property looked like it was in the middle of the woods and this was in Forest Hill, surrounded on almost all sides by million dollar homes. No workshop this time, but a mostly building foundation basement that had a ceiling height of less than six feet. All the old tools and stuff that my father had in Montreal were down there, except that they were piled up everywhere with no real space to build much of anything.
Another ten years later. I was moved out, living in an apartment. My father had died, my mother had moved out and the old farm house was up for sale. I was using a wheelchair by that time and access into the basement was impossible for me. So, all the old tools were still sitting there in that small basement. Then, the time came when the house was sold and I was given all of 36 hours notice to remove what I wanted from the house.
It took me almost half a day to get a friend to drive me over to the old house. We drove part way up the driveway and came upon a huge dumpster, half filled with all my father's tools. It truly broke my heart to see them that way, but there was nothing I could do about it. I didn't have the space or the means to salvage many of those tools. The really sad thing was that these days, those old tools would sell for a literal fortune.
What happened with those tools is one of my biggest regrets in life and why this video tweaked some of my heart strings. Whether it's knowledge or tools being put by the wayside, we are losing a significant portion of our heritage, my heritage in the case of my father's tools. It really hurts me everytime I think of them.
Dave
