What do you do with a Router?

   

Mom in the finished kitchen

  Once Dad was finished with the bedrooms upstairs, he started on remodeling the rooms on the first floor. My former little bedroom became the new bathroom, and the old bathroom was taken out; the walls for the old bathroom, master bedroom, and closet were removed such that those three spaces made one big room that was going to be the new kitchen. The far end would become the cooking area with cabinets, appliances – including a dishwasher, and counter space and the other end would become the eating area with a sliding glass door out to the deck overlooking the row of hemlock trees I have mentioned before.

     One day Dad turned on his charm and said to Mom, “You know, I really could use a router.”

     Mom's participation in all this remodeling was to hold the figurative purse strings – she would let Dad know if they had the money go pay for the next thing they needed for the house projects. If they did not have the money – they waited until they did. The Folks did not pay cash for everything – they had a Sears credit card that was almost never paid off – but they did not run the credit card up too high – always watching their pennies. If Dad had credit at the local lumber company – Rucker Lumber down past Patchin in the Town of Boston – he either paid it off regularly or did not let it get too high. I remember trips to Rucker Lumber, but I do not recall how things got paid for.

     So on the day that Dad was sweet-talking Mom about a router, Mom looked very apprehensive and asked what the heck a router was – she knew the common tools – but Mom had never heard of a router before.

     Dad leaned in to her and said, “Mare, with a router, I can build you kitchen cabinets that will be nicer than any we have seen in the stores.”

     With that, Mom put away the figurative purse and picked up her own real pocketbook, she said, “Christmas is coming soon. Maybe Santa will put a router under the tree this year.”

     Seeing opportunity, Dad quickly added, “A router table too – the router has to attach to a table. A router table costs about $40.”

     Mom then glanced over at me. Because, you know, Dads are hard to shop for – it is difficult to come up with gift ideas or to know what it is they would really want. And here was a huge hint being handed right to me!

Maudie or Sudee atop the Admiral fridge

     I scraped together my babysitting money, and under the Christmas tree that year, next to the wrapped up router, was a wrapped up router table.

     And the subsequent cabinets that Dad built for the kitchen? Well they looked nice, and at the time I just thought that is just what Dads do. 

     But when I think back on those kitchen cupboards now, I can't help but believe they really were the most beautiful cabinets I have ever seen before or since.

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