Spent the afternoon with my dad...

[jplinville]

I was left my dad's tool boxes when he passed away 2.5 years ago. Two of them have been in my basement in a corner since bringing them home...the rest of them are in a storage unit.

I finally started to clean them out, tossing out random pieces of steel that have no meaning to anyone, but meant something to him...pieces of steel that were deleted out of a die during an engineering change or were replaced with the newest profile as per customer needs...things he made that are no longer needed.

I pulled out his old Machinist's Handbook, and found school pictures of my brothers and me, as well as all the pictures of my kids that I gave him over the years. I also found a pocket knife that I got him when I was 16, and a Zippo I had engraved for him for Father's Day in 1989...never lit.
I found parts from dies we built together, such as the whistle for the American Whistle Company, a wiper arm die we did that made the wiper arm for the Chrysler 300, and bearing caps for another customer.

It was then that I realized how well we worked together, yet rarely saw things on the same level outside of work and politics.

I spent the afternoon with my dad...what a great afternoon it was.