Three Nails
My daddy is a master carpenter. His work is heralded for its perfection and durability. “More is better when it comes to nails,” I’ve heard him say countless times over the years.
As we swayed back and forth in the east-facing swing on her front porch, my grandmother shared the details of a childhood lesson that really stuck with my daddy regarding nails. Grandma stopped to giggle every few minutes as her soothing voice spun the tale.
My father’s childhood home did not have an indoor, plumbed restroom. He didn’t live in a home with one until graduating from high school in 1959. Oh, there were “slop jars” inside for night use, but the restroom itself was located behind the house. It was an old-fashioned outhouse positioned over a large pit.
When the pit got too full or putrid, a new pit had to be hand-dug, and a hole bored in the base of the wall that separated the two pits so gravity would force the contents of the full pit into the fresh one. One of my daddy’s childhood chores was digging fresh outhouse pits.
One early morning, as he left for work, my Paw ID broke the news to my dad that a new pit was required and expected it to be completed and ready for inspection by the time he returned that evening.
Dad got to work. While he dug, he began thinking about how to avoid having to dig so many pits in the future. He decided to increase the depth of the new pit. Dirt flew as he dug. Soon he was too deep to toss the dirt out by hand and began removing it by the bucketful.
When it became too hard to climb in and out of the pit hoisting buckets, he gathered spare lumber, some rusty nails, and constructed a crude ladder. His grandfather, Paw Marion, watched from his perch under a big shade tree.
“Boy, you are wasting nails by using so many on each rung,” he scolded.
Daddy put the remaining three nails in his pocket and placed the ladder down in the pit. The job progressed at a swift pace.
Finally, the job was done. When my grandfather got home that afternoon, he headed out back to inspect Daddy’s work. After climbing down into the pit, he deemed it acceptable and punched a small hole from inside the new pit into the full one. He knew, from experience, to bore a small hole since it would naturally widen as the waste began to leach through, bringing dirt with it.
But as soon as he punched through, a large portion of the wall collapsed and the contents of the pit rushed forth. He jumped for the ladder and began a rapid ascent—but the cross rungs started giving way. One nail in each side of the top rungs wasn’t enough for the ladder to remain stable under his weight.
Grasping at the side of the dirt pit, he fell between the wall and the ladder and remained trapped there. When the flow leveled, he was stuck chest-deep in the putrid contents of the pit.
“When your dad heard what happened, he jingled those three nails in his pocket. We couldn’t keep him in nails after that,” Grandma chuckled.
Have the walls around you ever crumbled? Is your support system strong enough to bear the weight of any catastrophe?
Jesus is our constant support in times of need and trouble.
Three rusty nails…
Daddy roofing our office building at the age of 77.
