It Says "Sprocket," Not "Socket"

Another crisp Autumn morning, and I found myself in the yard of an Oakland public school. While I have effectively sworn off any further PTA meetings, I still feel connected to the place where my son spends many of his waking hours. In a perfect world, there would be sufficient custodial services as well as a crack team of Buildings and Grounds specialists on hand to keep the facilities at my son's school in peak operating condition. This is not a perfect world.
When I arrived, I was greeted by a few familiar faces, and was offered the seemingly cherry job of repairing the planter boxes that line one side of the "upper yard." By showing up with my Snap-on work gloves, I appeared as the can-do guy, the one with the know-how, and other hyphenated-phrases. I was given free rein of my good friend and confidante's toolbox, as well as a big picture idea of what needed to be done. These boxes needed to be repaired, and there was some lumber and a great many machines, both simple and complex, to help me in this endeavor. And then I was cut loose. It was up to me to recreate the once sturdy and stately planter boxes. I set about assessing the situation, and imagining how I could best accomplish this task.
The truth is, I had done something very similar just a year ago, back on the yard of my son's elementary school. I imagined that I could eventually replicate that experience, given a certain amount of time and forgiveness. That's when another degree of difficulty was added: Another father arrived, eager to pitch in and be every bit as big a part of his son's school environment as I was. We shook hands, and I admired his relatively fresh knee surgery scar. We commiserated briefly about physical therapy and the changes in orthopedics over the past twenty years, then set about our task.
My confident exterior was based solely on the fact that I had been introduced to this project ten minutes ahead of my partner. I hoped that my skill set would remain sufficient for all the steps required. I flashed back briefly to my years spent installing modular office furniture, and the very steep learning curve I faced with my degree in Creative Writing and a limited vocabulary of tools. I learned fast, but always felt like an outsider in discussions of three-quarters this and seven-eighths that. I hoped that I wouldn't be asked to hand somebody a left-handed oval head-cutter.
But we hammered and braced and sawed and drilled, and after a few hours, we were done. We took a step back and admired our work. The planter boxes were repaired. We shook hands, and my partner went to find a place to rest his newly reconstructed knee. I swept up the debris and put my borrowed tools away. "Dads know how to use tools," I had said to the kid who stopped by to help us for a few minutes. Just don't ask me what they're called.