Learning From Our Fathers

My dad would have made that patio dead level even if we'd lived in Florida. 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.

I always mourn the destruction the Protestant Revolution had on Catholic churches and Cathedrals.

The whitewashing of frescos and destruction of stainglass seems akin to the Taliban's destruction of the Giant Buddas.

It was the painstaking craftsmanship of the workers creating their gift to God and their fellow man that was destroyed.

In this Father's Day Letter, Popular Mechanics editor-in-chief Jim Meigs lists the Four Things I Learned From My Dad. The concept that "craftsmanship is the respect we pay to ourselves, to the people around us, and the material world" is sadly lacking in the world today and should be taught and cherished father to son, father to daughter.