A Lesson From the Wood Shed – “Doing the Next Right Thing”

My dad was raised in a charming little lumber town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Nearly everyone in town worked for the lumber company which consisted of a lumber mill and a box factory. My Grandpa ran the warehouse. The main street of the town was lined with small, wooden, bungalow type houses. Each house, including the house my dad grew up in, was painted barn red with white trim. Everyone’s back yard was a never-ending wonderland of pine trees. It was quite the backdrop for growing up.

Over the years most of the big timber was been cut down, and shortly after I was born it was determined that the mill should be closed. The day the mill was to shut down it caught fire and burned to the ground and my relations moved away. When I was a little girl I loved nothing more that to sit with the grownups and listen to them reminisce and swap memories of days gone by in this little corner of God’s creation. I was a girl growing up in the big city listening to stories about a two-room schoolhouse, horses, winter snow that reached the eaves of the little red houses, and forts and tree swings in the forest. In my mind I imagined it all, including family picnics to the lake, complete with a basket full of grandma’s cooking and a red-checkered tablecloth. As described by my grandma and grandpa, and my aunts and dad, their upbringing sounded like pages out of a book, that kind of book you wish you could crawl inside.

Sometimes my dad would use stories from his life in this little wonderland to illustrate some particular life lesson he wanted us to grasp. The illustration that most readily comes to my mind is a very simple one. My dad would pull this metaphor out of his back pocket anytime there was a job to be done that was too big, to daunting, bigger than me or bigger than the combined heart might mind and strength of all his children.

As I mentioned, part of the lumber business was a box-making factory where wooden boxes were made. These were the kind of boxes like the ones we sometimes find at the small town fruit stand filled with peaches or pears. The construction of these boxes also produced a mountain of wood scraps. Before the snow began to fly, the lumber company would distribute small mountains of scraps in the driveways of all the little houses in the lumber village to be used as wood in their stoves throughout the winter.

Behind dad’s barn red house was a red slant roofed shed. The sole purpose of this shed was to house the firewood supply that would keep the family warm through the frozen winter months when all those pine trees were laden with frozen white snow. It took four loads of wood to fill the shed. Though, as a little boy, dad didn’t work for the lumber company, he was required to work for his family. His biggest chore involved this mountain. His assignment was to toss every piece of scrap wood in this daunting pile through the shed window.

When we were faced with something overwhelming dad would often bring up the memory of this childhood responsibility. He described it as a very discouraging job for a little boy. He told us that at first he would look up at the mountain of scraps and think of his assignment in despair. Then he made a simple discovery that gave him what it took to get each and every piece of wood from the driveway, through that window and into the shed. He found if he would focus on tossing in one piece at a time the job could be done. The advice my dad offered, whenever a task seemed to big, was to “wood shed it.” We all knew what that meant. No matter what we were challenged by, success would come as we were willing to exert the smallest bit of effort, consistently, in the right direction.

I remember the first time I sat in a meeting and listened as the 12 Steps were read aloud. I was dumbfounded at the list of 12 simple but not easy recommendations. I know I’m not the only one who's felt such initial fear. The book Alcoholics Anonymous, affectionately know as the Big Book, discloses the feelings of those pioneers who forged the way for us, “Many…exclaimed, ‘What an order!’” (Page 60) The book goes on to disclose the stories of men and women who, by the grace of God, were able to do the work required - one day at time, one prayer at a time, one meeting at a time, one moment of reaching out to another sufferer at a time, and one step at a time, for a lifetime.

“What an order!” Those words take my mind to that little woodshed, filled to the brim against the coming winter by a little boy who was willing to pick up one piece of scrap wood at a time and toss it in the window.

By Nannette W.
Posted Saturday, January 3, 2009

Copyright 2008 by Nannette W. All right reserved. Making or sending copies is permitted if the page is not changed in any way and the material is not used for profit. This notice must be included on each copy made or sent.