From the Ground Up

Earlywood: From the Ground Up

Publisher’s note: Good morning and welcome to Earlywood, a free excerpt published every Saturday from one of the thousands of pieces I’ve written since 1996. Sometimes it’s from a magazine article. Or a book. Or (in this case) a blog post from 2018. Each entry has been updated or annotated with some modern context or point of view. We hope you enjoy it.

I was in elementary school when my father hurt his back so badly while working on the farm that his doctor confined him to bed.

My bedroom was immediately down the hall from my parents’, and after school one day I heard disturbing noises – violent banging and rasping – coming from their room. Their door was open a crack, and as I gently pushed my way in, I was surprised, relieved and completely enlightened about my own nature.

My father was lying flat in bed, as per the doctor’s orders. And he was building a small side table in this odd position, without a workbench or his machinery. (In fact, during this conv…