I have finally begun the process of building out my shop like I want. For three years it has been nothing but a hollow metal building with a concrete floor with a few benches and tools and junk scattered around. I’ve had in mind what I wanted even before I drove the corner stakes in the ground. Now, all of a sudden, the dream is getting some legs to it.

Since the tree farm trailers are no longer mine, I have to borrow a trailer from a buddy of mine to haul the sawmill lumber I’m buying. He’s been offering since last June to let me use one anytime I need it.

“You just let me know,” he says. “I’ve got four of them.”

I give him grief. “I’m used to pulling trailers that are actually road worthy. Lights and everything.”

“You’ll be fine,” he says.

So, I finally call him to see if I can take him up on his offer. He hem-haws around about the lights, and license plate, and the fender falling off. But he finally says he can get one ready for me.

I go to pick it up. It’s parked right where he said it would be. There’s a tag and registration lying on the deck under a rock.

He says, “I don’t put tags on my trailers. They just get beat up and stolen. Keep it with you in the cab of your truck and you’ll be fine.”

There’s a young fella there to help me. He tells me that he went through all the lights. Everything works, but once we get it hooked up, I got no lights at all on the right side.

“Well, just make all left turns and you should be okay,” he says.

I made it to the lumber yard just fine. This is a small private sawmill operation. Don’t think Georgia Pacific. Think more like your recluse Uncle Joe on your mama’s side owns a sawmill and two barns.

Phil is the owner and he’s a house builder. I’ve sold him a number of trees over the years for his projects, and I knew he milled some of his own wood for his houses. I called, and though he doesn’t ordinarily sell his lumber, he agreed to help me out.

I eased up to the woodshed. Window down. He speaks out of the corner of his mouth to his three employees, and then spits his tobacco.

“Y’all don’t mind this piece of #¶*% truck he’s driving. Chevy men aren’t real men, anyways.”

And from there, the banter began. Ford versus Chevy. There’s a Dodge man in the group.

“You sure this rag is gonna pull this load? Maybe we should only put half a load on there.”

“You need me to follow you home? I’ve got a chain in case you need help.”

Truck guys are relentless.

I made it home just fine. 200 boards, 1x10s and 1x12s, 12ft long. On the inside, I’m turning my metal looking shop into a wood looking shop, lining the walls all the way around. That’s step one.

I told Marion that I had my hands on the lumber. She was excited and made me promise to wait on her so she could help me unload.

Let me just say, 200 boards is a lot of lumber. I spent a good portion of the day last Thursday clearing out some space in my shop. My goal was to make room to back the trailer inside and get the boards stacked up on sawhorses.

We got about 70 boards stacked up when I became concerned about the holding capacity of my sawhorses. I have no idea what kind of weight we were dealing with, it just “looked” heavy. I thought I heard a sawhorse scream, and I figured it was time for set #2.

This second set of sawhorses seemed to me to be weaker than the first, so we stopped at 55 boards on the next stack. We sat an extra 15 boards on the saw table. The last 60 went on the floor in front of the roll-up door. Everywhere you walked inside my shop was a tight squeeze around a pile of lumber.

If you’ve ever had a dream of any kind, you can probably appreciate this moment. I’ve always known that I wanted to retire to my woodshop. I’ve been piddling in a small space for the last twenty-something years, a room so small I had to go outside to turn a sheet of plywood around. A few years ago, I finally pulled the trigger on building a proper shop.

Then Beth died. Everything came to a halt for a while, including any progress on finishing the shop.

Now, I’ve got Marion working beside me to help make this dream a reality.

We were short on time. She needed to get back home. But we managed to get more than half of one wall hung in place before she had to go.

Once we said our goodbyes and she left, the shop was quiet. I sat for a spell in one of my rocking chairs just to look and marvel at the change taking place.

I thought about the time my dad extended our den at home. All my growing up years there had been a porch under roof outside the back den door. I was away at college. Next thing I knew, a wall was gone, a fireplace had been built surrounded by windows and the back door had been relocated to the new wall. The porch was now inside the house.

I remember asking my dad, “What made you want to do this?”

I’ll never forget his response. “It was just something I’ve always wanted to do since we built this house.”

I think it’s the reason I built the back porch last year. I know it’s the reason I’m now working on my shop again.

We all put off things we want to do. When we’re young, we can’t afford it. When we’re raising kids, we don’t have time for it. When we get the house paid off and the kids move on, you start to think about it. You start to pick up the dream again.

I realize that at my age, I may not get to enjoy this shop but a few years. Who knows? Then I think, I sure am enjoying it now. At times I wonder what the heck am I doing? I don’t need a shop like this big and fancy.

But there’s no going back now. We just unloaded about 4 tons of lumber.

So, I’m rocking and thinking. I can’t even see around me because of the lumber stacked up on sawhorses. The scaffolding on wheels sits by the far wall. I’m thinking, “Man, that pine wall sure looks good in here.”

In my mind, I can see my grandkids at my bench making memories. The smells. The sounds. The feel of wood. The projects they’ll make with my help.

A magical place to them, this old shop. I hope that’s the way it goes. That’s my dream, anyway.

And it’s looking more real all the time.