Craftsmen

This piece in Popular Mechanics reminds me of not only my own dad but also of Husband and my grandfather. All three are craftsmen in life - the kind of men who do things well simply for the joy of doing it. They are men who give everything they have to everything they touch; they wouldn't know shoddy work if it walked up and whacked them on the knees. What they have isn't perfectionism - it's nothing as shallow as that. Instead, as the author points out below, it's a desire to make the world around you better by doing each job better than it needs to be done.

"To him, doing work precisely and with care is an end in itself. He often told me about the men he grew up with, fellow machinists and mechanics. To them, doing a job well–better than it needed to be done–was a core ethical principal. He took pride in his craftsmanship. 'The best thing you could say about a man,' my dad often recalls, 'is that he was a good mechanic.' And that was all you needed to say. But my dad also taught me that craftsmanship isn't just about how you build things. He brought that quality to everything: working in the business world, writing books, raising kids, grilling steaks. Craftsmanship is the respect we pay to ourselves, to the people around us, and to the material world we try to shape and improve."

Happy Father's Day to all three of the wonderful craftsmen in my life. May God grant all of you many years!