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The Gym Set
by Beverly Beckham
Building a playset and a bond, one small step at a time.
Day 1: There they are, outside in the freezing cold, the pair of them, Mutt and Jeff, father and son, putting together an elaborate swing set.
It came in three huge boxes and now it’s in a million pieces all over the back yard. They have made piles: big, medium, and small slabs of wood; windows; railings; shutters; nuts; bolts and screws. They have fashioned a workbench from sawhorses and plywood. They have gathered the tools they will need: wrench, hammer, drill, measuring tape, and patience. The father has read the directions. There are 46 pages. He says they are useless. The son inspects them, frowns, and agrees.
The son will be 4 in five days. The dad is 35.
They are a team.
The father shows the boy how to measure, how to bolt, and how to use a screw gun. The boy watches and nods and then tries these things himself.
It is 34 degrees, a raw, nasty, bone-chilling day. But the boy doesn’t say, “I’m cold, Daddy” or “I don’t want to do this anymore.” He says, “Hey Daddy, can you hand me the tape measure, please?” “It’s over on the bench, Adam,” the father says, and the boy finds it, then measures the pieces that will be a wood roof, laying them side by side, one by one.
They work together like this all afternoon, talking sometimes, “Daddy, where does this want to go?” “It lives over there, Ad.” But quiet most of the time, heads bent, busy, determined, until it’s 6:00 p.m. and they are called in to eat.
Day 2: There they are again, outside in the pouring rain, up early, the pair of them, father and son, breakfast barely digested, on the job already, framing, angling, building.
The wind howls and rain blows, but they don’t care. They keep on working, the climbing wall almost finished, progress, one bolt, one screw, one small step at a time, being made.
“It’s time for Fit Club, Adam,” his mother yells. Fit Club is Adam’s favorite hour of the week, running around with kids his age, playing ball, punching a bean bag, counting laps, and doing pushups. But he races to the door and tells his mom, “I don’t want to go to Fit Club. I want to stay home and help Daddy.”
That’s when she phones me. “You have to come and see this, Mom.”
I come and see.
It’s a monsoon but there they are, Adam perched on some floorboards in a roofless clubhouse, screw gun in hand, and his Dad on the grass below, jimmying one piece of wood into another.
“Hey, Mimi!” he yells. “Look at what Daddy and I are making!”
“It’s amazing, Mom,” my daughter says. “Can you believe this is the same boy who cries when he gets water in his eyes in the bathtub? Can you believe he chose this over Fit Club!”
Day 3: The rain has stopped. The sun is shining. But it’s a kite-flying day, the wind strong and biting, whipping leaves and making the biggest trees sway.
Not a problem. Father and son are out the door at 7:30 a.m. and they work non-stop until 8:30 when it’s time for Adam’s preschool. This is the day he eats lunch with his friends.
But he doesn’t want to stay and eat lunch with his friends. He wants to come home early. “I want to work through lunch with Daddy,” he says.
So his Mom picks him up at 11:30 and he bolts to the back yard and his dad says, “Hi, Buddy, I missed you.” And Adam says, “I missed you, too, Daddy.” And then he yells, “Wow! Look at that slide!”
And the screw gun is forgotten. And the measuring tape. And helping Daddy. Because the slide has his attention now. The great big, beautiful slide that his dad built while he was at school.
Up the ladder. Down the slide. Up the ladder. Down the slide. “You try it, Mimi.”
“I can’t believe you built all this, Adam,” I say.
“Me and my Daddy built it,” he tells me.
“It must have been really hard to do.”
He shrugs and smiles. “I’m a really good builder, Mimi.”
“He is,” his dad says. “I couldn’t have done it without him.”
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