Every season means a different wood-related activity when you heat with a woodstove in New England. Hot and sunny spring and summers mean stacking and drying season. The fall is hurry-up-you-should-have-stacked-it-already season. The winter you split, carry and burn the wood, then dispose of the ashes, until it’s time to order or cut all over again. Some folks have more than enough wood for two or three winters, and they keep it that way, always cutting and stacking for the years to come. But most people are just getting in enough wood to get them through the cold, and praying for an early spring.
Todd’s father had always had four years’ worth of wood dried and stacked in his lot, and that’s how Todd was, until they had the kids. There was just so much to do after the kids came, and money was so tight, he couldn’t ever get ahead. Todd thought that when his kids were older, they’d help out, the way he’d helped his father. There was nothing quite as satisfying as stacking a perfectly balanced chord of wood. Getting wood for the stove became a ritual. Whether the spring peepers were serenading him or whether the fresh winter stars were showing him the path in the snow to the woodpile, those regular trips outside formed the rhythm of his life with his Dad.
But his kids wanted nothing to do with it. They’d complain and argue and fight. They’d get wound up and it wasn’t safe to have them around the splitter or the axe. So Todd was outside or in the garage, working, and his sons were inside playing video games and maybe even getting high.
Mary, Todd’s wife, had gotten the boys some help from the Carson Center. The boys were signed up for Carson’s Therapeutic Recreation program. Todd just couldn’t see the sense of it. It was good the Recreation program was going to get them out of the house, but how was it going to help them with all the things the therapist said they were struggling with?
At first, the boys had trouble sticking to the rules at Rec. There’s a lot more than you think to rowing a boat correctly, if you really know what you are doing. Justin and Jeremy just wanted to get in the boat and get out there on the open water. But there was all this business about the grip and your balance, and the timing, and the curve and pull of the oar. The Rec people just made them slow down and take it one minute at a time. Staff made them practice, over and over. After a while, they got stronger. And more skilled. They could actually make the boat go where they wanted it to. And there was all the business about caring for the boat, launching it safely or getting it out of the water. And packing for trips. There were so many parts to everything. It was that way for fishing, too. It was also like that for cooking at the volunteer dinners they prepared with the Rec staff at the homeless shelters. There was the organizing the utensils, the food and the recipes. The measuring, the timing, the serving. Mostly, there was dividing big tasks up into small parts, taking one thing at a time, and appreciating what they’d accomplished. It’s not like that playing video games from the couch.
After about a year, both Justin and Jeremy noticed how Rec had helped with their anxieties and with their social isolation. They didn’t worry about things so much; they didn’t panic. They both had the sense that they could figure things out, because they had faced so many challenges in Rec. And faced them with friends.
“Dad!” called Jeremy. Todd was in the garage when the boys approached him. “We have a new project in Rec this spring.”
“I think it goes into summer and winter, too,” added Justin.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” asked Todd.
“It’s called, “The Woodpile.”
By JAC Patrissi
