Rising at 5:30 a.m. the other morning brought to mind an early morning 52 years ago. I was to be married in a few days. In addition to my twin brother, Tim, as best man and Doug Hanenberg, who would marry my wife’s sister a year or so hence, I had asked Bill Sperling, a dear friend of my dad and about the same age as he–which is to say nearly 60–to stand up with me. Despite the age difference, I felt close to Bill and his wife, Ruth, with whom I had lived the previous summer while I worked for my future father-in-law building swimming pools. Beyond that, we two shared the great blessing of having, in the person of my biological father, the same spiritual father.
Bill owned a small business in Spokane, Washington as did some of his friends. A dozen or so of them he had invited to join him, my dad, brother, Doug and me for breakfast at a local pancake house before they opened their shops, offices and businesses on that early June morning. Each brought a tool to give to me: hammer, screwdriver, pliers, etc. A heavy pipe wrench we used to call a plumber’s helper wound up on top of our fridge in the apartment building we managed during my second year at Dallas Seminary–on the advice of the parole officer of one of our tenants. Yes– it was that kind of place. Thankfully, the wrench would be used only on pipes–not skulls.
While my soon-to-be-married fiancee was enjoying a last few hours of, I hope, restful sleep (in her parents’ home, of course), I was being plied with tools any handyman would have envied. But a handyman I was not–nor ever have been. On that pancake-morning in June of 1974 I could have parsed a Greek verb; the workings of an auto engine, on the other hand– or a kitchen sink for that matter– mystified and terrified me. But the care and good will the gift of those tools represented warms my heart to this day. Thanks, Bill. I’ll see you soon in the land where the roses never fade and tools are not needed–because, there, nothing breaks down or wears out.
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