OFF THE CUFF: A whole lot rests on the nails of life

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

It happened several weeks ago - unexpectedly, of course. You might call it a surprise. I called it that.

It greeted me when I opened the Eagle Observer office to start a day. A quick check on that nemesis of mine - the computer - jerked me back into a reality I had not expected.

The “surprise” was all over the computer and desk: the fiendish monster-Mac was enveloped with metal frames and ceiling panels and insulation batts, as well as plaster from a long forgotten ceiling of past years. The brick building was constructed early in the last century and it was a portion of that ceiling support and plaster that filled the room.

Enough said, except that after cleaning up the mess and finding the computer worked after clearing the dust and grit from the keyboard, it was back to the old grind. Except....

Except, a couple of days later I ran on to another souvenir from that mishap. There, lying on a window sill behind a curtain I found ... a nail.

It was not just any nail. It was THE nail. One that predated all local memories because it wasn’t today’s type of nail. It was the old square, flat, sharp-pointed hold’em-together device that predates conventional nails and rivet guns.

It’s amazing that buildings constructed more than a hundred years ago still stand. Most early day buildings in area towns are so constructed. Most of those in Gravette are constructed of brick fired at a local kiln. The carpenters who shaped the rafters and sidewalls and door openings and floor joists and all those other things that are part of a building used such nails to hold everything together.

What tales they - the nails - could tell, about former occupants of the structures such as grocery stores and attorney offices, meat markets, insurance shops, dry good stores and even a leather shop with a dummy hanging outside the front door which once graced the building now housing the Eagle Observer. Most old buildings can tell similar tales.

Anyway, I got to thinking how important the nails of our lives are: those nails which became part of us from childhood days, elementary school, Sunday School, summer vacation experiences, family togetherness, competition in sports, worrying about that algebra test, etc. And finally the culmination: graduation day.

The graduation events hundreds of youth in our area and throughout the nation have been experiencing in recent days are all held together by the nails of learning and experience each child has been equipped with during the preceding, extremely-formative years.

So what this column really is about is to congratulate the grads on the things they have been equipped with during the past few years: cutting two-by-four experiences the right length with saws and chisels that have sharpened wisdom in evaluating situations. Finally, there are the nails. And the hammers of perseverance each student now must use as he or she builds a framework for the rest of life.

Finally, this column is about the challenge each of us, as adults face, that of equipping coming generations with all of those tools. And plenty of nails. And the fact that today’s graduates now share that awesome responsibility of helping in the shaping others lives in the future. Go get ‘em, Grads!

Dodie Evans is the editor emeritus of the Westside Eagle Observer and may be contacted by email at [email protected].

Opinion, Pages 7 on 05/22/2013