“…a crib,” the oldest man said. “For my daughter. I was eighteen, broke, and scared to death. I built it with the tools in this box, and she slept in it for two years. She’s a pediatric surgeon now.” He set the box gently on the cake table. Then the next man stepped forward and unwrapped his. “I built my first house frame with this. I own a construction company now, forty employees.” Then the next. “Kitchen cabinets for my mother, after my dad left.” Then the next. “My own coffin, almost. I was in a bad place. Mr. Hale drove to my apartment and made me build a bookshelf instead.”
One by one, all nine men set their boxes down until the cake was surrounded by worn wood and burned initials. Nobody in that VFW hall was laughing anymore. My father-in-law had taken off his glasses and was wiping them over and over on his shirt.
Then the ninth man, the youngest, about fifty, walked past the table and stopped in front of Lucas. He unwrapped a box much older than the others, with the initials R.H. burned into the lid. “This one isn’t mine,” he said. “It belonged to Ray Hale. Your dad. He was in Mr. Hale’s very first class. Before he was your uncle by blood, he was his student.”
Lucas stared at the box. His father had died three years ago. “Your dad gave this to me before he passed,” the man said, “and told me to give it to you on the right day. He said, ‘Tell Luke I built his crib with these. Tell him his uncle taught me how.’”
Lucas took the box in both hands. The venture partner who calls everyone legend didn’t have a single word. He opened the lid, ran his fingers over an old hand plane with his father’s initials scratched into the handle, and then he looked up at Wendell with his eyes full of tears. “Uncle Wendell,” he said quietly, “will you teach me how to use it?”
Wendell put his glasses back on. “Saturday morning,” he said. “Bring coffee.” Lucas flew back from Austin three times that fall. The first thing he built was a birdhouse. It hangs outside Wendell’s kitchen window, crooked, and Wendell says it’s the best one he’s ever seen.
