When it came to tools, my dad was a stickler. 

He believed every tool had a place, and that every tool better be in its place, polished up and presentable.

“If it needs oil, oil it,” he’d say. “Just make sure you wipe it off.”

Now, one summer afternoon, my brother Mike and I found a big, bare patch in the yard and set about creating our own makeshift jobsite.

I won’t say whether it was Mike or me who took Dad’s claw hammer off the wall. But I will tell you this: once that hammer was in our hands, we became the youngest road crew ever assembled.

That trusty claw hammer transformed into the boom arm of a mighty excavator.
I was the foreman, shouting orders, and Mike was the machine operator, digging trenches, carving drainage channels, and piling dirt as if we were saving the state millions in infrastructure costs.

“Mike! We need more dirt over there! Dig it deeper! The highway’s floodin’!”

We were heroes. Legends.
Engineers of the backyard.

But then, a couple of weeks later, while we were off creating a fresh batch of mischief, we suddenly heard Dad’s voice booming through the house like a trumpet blast on judgment day:

“Where’s my hammer?”

Mike froze solid. I felt my soul separate from my physical body.

The rains had come, more than once. That poor abandoned hammer had been baptized in mud and exposed to the elements. And this is the only kind of baptism that Dad didn’t take kindly to. 

We received what I call “the wisdom of a father’s discipline.”
A lesson you don’t forget, not because it hurt, but because it taught.

Afterward, Dad handed me the rust-speckled hammer and instructed me to place it in the diesel tank so it could soak all day. The next day, I pulled it out, wiped it clean, and returned the hammer to its rightful home; the spot Dad had chosen, the place it belonged.

Y’know, looking back, I think Dad was teaching us something more than tool etiquette.
He taught us that how you care for your tools, your things, and your responsibilities… well, that’s a reflection of you.

A man’s habits reveal his character.
A polished hammer says more than shiny words ever could.

Be well. Stay well. Thanks for readin’...

Francis Pass

P.S. – Take care of what’s in your hands, and life takes care of the rest.