I’ve been doing lots of work around the house now that the weather is finally cooler—replacing rotted wood outdoors (fence, shed, flowerboxes), gluing, measuring, cutting, painting, etc. And just as happens every time I start working with tools or doing anything requiring manual skills, the expert trio shows up. The trio, who among them know all there is to know about doing anything with wood, metal, furniture, machinery, or anything, are my father and my two grandfathers.

And, as usual, they have plenty to say. Grandpa Harry was an upholsterer but had also done an apprenticeship as a carriage painter and builder back in the late 90s (the 1890s, that is). Grandpa Max was a carpenter—specifically, a wood turner, who made table legs and other round items with a lathe. My dad, Max’s son, worked in his father’s shop while attending college. He eventually became a PhD chemist, but he never forgot the joy of craftsmanship and in retirement made stained-glass objects.

Compared to these three, I am of course a novice in everything. And so they delight in showing up together whenever I take hammer or sickle in hand (a not-so-subtle metaphor, since all three were ardent communists). A few days ago, as I was taping the edges of the door frame prior to painting, Harry chimed in with “Sam [my dad]! Didn’t you teach him how to tape? That is a mess!” Oh, I should mention, they never address me, only each other. And Harry, as when he was alive, does most of the talking.

On another occasion, I was cutting a one-by-four board for a new fence top rail when the power saw kicked a bit at the end of the cut. I knew I was going to hear about that one! Even Max (always the quietest of the bunch) had something to say: “Does he know how dangerous that is?” (I might mention that Max learned his trade before electric lathes existed, and I remember his foot-pedal-driven lathe with the enormous granite flywheel attached.) His son shook his head. “I told him about safety with saws and drills over and over again…”

I practically burst out, “Yes, thanks, Dad! And I have never had an accident, so I must have been listening.” But there was no point. I learned quite some time ago that they couldn’t hear me. It was a private conversation that I could eavesdrop on but not participate in. Probably much like the reality when I was a child.

My father mostly taught me stuff by having me watch him, but Harry took it upon himself to actively teach with prepared lessons. He loved to give me tests, like showing me a chair and asking me what was wrong with it, and how I would fix it. One time he told me a lamp wasn’t working, and he was quite pleased when I pointed out that the cord was not plugged in. “Always check the easy stuff first,” he told me. He couldn’t have known how often that advice came in handy during my career as a laboratory scientist, working with equipment and tools he could never have dreamed of.

He didn’t teach me everything he knew how to do. There was the art of rapid-hammering tacks into a sofa or chair, for example. He would throw a handful of these very sharp, small tacks into his mouth. Then, using only one hand (the other one occupied with holding the material in place), he would bring a magnetized hammer up to his mouth, where one tack would attach to it, then bring the hammer and tack down to the work, and with two strokes of the hammer—one to hold the tack in its place, the second to drive it home—the tack was in, and, almost instantly, the next one was on its way. Using this method, he could drive in a dozen tacks in about a half minute. As a ten-year-old, I of course wanted to try this, but my mother forbade it. I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a ten-year-old boy holding a dozen tacks in his mouth, and bringing a hammer right up to his mouth several times a minute? When she voiced this objection, her father reminded her (probably for the hundredth time) that that was exactly what he had to learn to do at the same age during his apprenticeship in Tzarist Russia, where he worked twelve hours a day for room and board. He would also mention that one of his friends bashed his teeth in with the hammer, and another swallowed several tacks and was lain up for a week (no hospitals for apprentices).

Both Harry and Max had their own shops and were thus technically small businessmen. This might seem ironic, given their devotion to communism, but there was in fact a link between the two. Both had found jobs when they arrived in the Boston area from Russia, but both were eventually fired and blacklisted for trying to organize unions, so they became independent craftsmen. Despite all they had in common, and despite their children marrying each other, I don’t remember them being friends, and I am sure there was some ancient quarrel behind that, but it’s long lost to history.

Of course, they have long since passed on, Harry living into his late 80s, Max departing a bit earlier, as did my dad. But they can still enjoy watching me make a total fool of myself building a bookcase, or birdhouse, or, most recently, a new flowerbox. As Harry said when I held up the four-piece wooden hanging box for their approval, “It will work, but as I have told him many times, the most important part of carpentry is the finish. Otherwise, it just doesn’t look professional.” Both Max and my dad nodded in agreement. Max then pointed out that one of the screws was not well set and could be seen, while my dad mentioned the lack of a flush joint between one of the sides and the back support piece. I knew it was no use saying that once hung, neither of these blemishes would show, because they wouldn’t hear me. And, even if they had, “There is no excuse for shoddy work” was a motto emblazoned in my mind around age five.

Of course, I don’t really mind any of this. I am not bothered by their visits but honored and delighted by them. I am not a young man myself, and I find it a source of happiness and good fortune that I had such honest, hardworking, decent men in my life. And even if I am a complete disappointment when it comes to fine carpentry or making things of beauty and utility, perhaps their wisdom and experience did me some good in my long life. At least it is comforting to think so.