I have always tried to do things the way I thought best, but not always the same way that everyone else tries to do them.

My own personal spirit of ingenuity has often led me to greater learning, but not always by inventing new ways to do things better. Instead, veering from the path well trodden often helps me more fully understand why things need to be done the way they are usually done. Thousands of years of human struggle are not usually overcome with a whimsical idea during an afternoon project.

Yes, I have tried to do things that are not supposed to work, just to watch how they fail and figure out why. True understanding can only come through experience, and failure is often an integral part of any experience. Failure, if used properly, always makes us better.

Experience is something you get right after you actually need it.

I was always the child who asked, “But why?" “Just because that's the way it is," was never a good enough answer for me. That would always lead me to try something on my own, just to see. Like putting Dawn in the washing machine to see why it couldn't be used to wash clothes. My parents were gone at the time, thank goodness. The answer to that ‘but why' is that the bubbles soon overflow the washer and you have to carry out and dump numerous buckets of suds and mop the entire floor. There is a helpless feeling in watching the lid of a washing machine open up and belch out suds. If this happens to you once, you never try it again. Ditto for the dishwasher. They make different brands of sudsy stuff for a reason.

My most recent experience with “but why" logic came when I went to visit a friend of mine with a four-year-old son. His son is a real strapping lad, as big as a child at least three years older than himself. Sometimes it is hard to remember that his body is bigger than his mind. In saying that, I do not mean to imply that the boy is slow for a four-year-old, simply that he has not the development found in a seven- or eight-year-old child. Even so, he sometimes amazes me with his ability to learn by watching and trying things on his own.

My friend John and I were working on some plans I am making for a new woodshed and toolshed, which I plan to construct out of all the lumber I have stacked around the yard of my ‘cabin' in Virginia. I like to sound my design ideas off of John, since he, like me in this regard, over-builds everything. I would much rather have a structure built to handle three feet of snow in an area that gets one foot, rather than vice versa. Who wouldn't? If you scrimp on materials and still put in the same labor to make an inferior product, what have you really gained?

In fact, he was one of the people that I paid to help me in the construction of my two-story building that was finished last year. He helped me through most of it. A lot of construction, like lifting up pre-fab walls, putting up rafters and even sheathing and roofing, really requires a body to have help. I also worry sometimes about getting injured via a fall or some other way and needing medical attention. It is always better to build and hunt with a partner.

As for John, he generally knows how I think and helps me to put things together the way I want them put together — not like buying some diagram at the hardware store, but instead putting rudimentary lines on notebook paper and trying to turn that schematic into a real life building. Items like extra supports closer together, larger than needed corner posts set in cement, reinforced doorways and sheathing with thick boards or plywood and properly sized lag bolts, screws and nails will always build you the structure you want. Wooden structures that are built and maintained properly can outlast the person who builds them, but if I keep working like I have been, I might not have to worry about building it so well.

Anyway, before I got off track with this building thing, I was trying to tell you about my friend and his ‘but why' son. Every time he tries to do a project, his son has to help him. Once he put rock on the chimney in his kitchen and his son ‘helped' him by taking down part of the rock and trying to put it back. The mortar was still wet and John caught him before he got too much disassembled.

The boy also sometimes marks off saw lines on boards with Crayons and mixes mortar from mud or stolen cement to ‘build' things.

Watching him reminds me of my own poorly spent youth. For instance, I recall once when I was a boy my father hired a man to put in bathrooms in our house. At the grand old age of four, I had never seen indoor plumbing. I kept asking the plumber questions until he asked me to go play in the river, which was within eye and earshot — just off the mountain.

“Why, do you want to go swimming and fishing in the river with me?" I asked, not realizing he was telling me to bug off. He finally gave me a set of pliers to leave him alone. He got his money's worth for awhile.

Like I said, it's amazing to watch the little fellow imitate his father. As we were drawing up the plans for my shed, he watched intently. We made a few minor changes and a parts list for purchase and then decided we would try to start it within the next few weeks. As soon as the ‘plans' were on the table, his son was trying to draw up his own set. He opted out of the open-front shed design and went for the A-frame with two windows and a door in the middle. He soon showed me how he was going to install a light bar and a built-in cement mixer.

I wouldn't have thought of that.

I always admired John for his patience. A patient man is good help. Patience also means that he is willing to explain to his son what he is doing and try to make sense out of it for him, even when he is short on time. In fact, when his son takes his toys apart or breaks them, instead of getting angry with him like some people might, he helps him repair them and explains how they work.

Sometimes we can learn more than ‘how to' by paying attention to what's going on around us — even if we still don't always know why. Besides, sometimes the end result — raising a healthy, well-adjusted child in John's case — is more important than having all the answers.

Get more tongue in cheek commentary this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

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