I want to be like my Dad and teach my kids how to work.  I want to be like my Dad and pay them so well they ask me for work.  I want to be like my Dad and be patient when kids learn how to work.  I don’t want to be like my Dad in every way, though.

<>Evan, my oldest, has been painting for my Dad every day for a week.  My Dad’s paying him in a 1992 Jetta.  When Evan calls, he doesn’t mention the Jetta.  He mentions painting.  I’ve never heard him talk so much about any job.  

“Did I tell you I painted the entryway three times?” he said.

<>“No.” 

“I did.  First I painted it a medium blue color.  I ran out of paint halfway through and your Dad gave me a can of dark gray paint.  I told him it wasn’t the same color but he said, ‘That’s good enough.’  I painted it again.  When I finished, your Dad found a can of different blue paint and I painted it again with that color.”

<>“Isn’t that frustrating?” 

“No.  If I wasn’t painting the entryway, I’d be painting something else.  I painted one door six times.”

<>“I like to paint, but not that much,” I said. 

“Did I tell you I painted his whole house in one day?”

<>“No.” 

“I did.  Good thing I’m fast, because I’ll be painting a lot of it again tomorrow.”

<>“Why?” 

“It was kind of dirty, so I asked your Dad if we ought to power wash it before painting.  He didn’t want to wait for it to dry, I think, because he said he’d power wash it after I painted.

<>“I painted over all the dirt.  He spent most of the next day power washing it very carefully.  Half the new paint washed off.  The half that’s still on is painted over dirt. 

“He’s paying me to paint, so I paint.”

<>Is this the same kid who never quite got around to doing homework so he never quite got around to graduating High School? 

Following my Dad’s lead, I decided to see if I could get the skateboarder kid to get excited about manual labor.  The skateboarder won’t do anything without a friend, so he recruited one who needed money.  He can recruit anyone, as long as someone besides me does the dirty work. 

My Dad’s going to have to be the one sharing the painting skills.  I won’t let anyone touch a brush or a roller around here.  We’ve got plenty of other jobs for money-hungry teenagers.  Lack of work isn’t a problem when you never get around to finishing anything.

<>The back yard is the biggest mess.  No amount of Long’s Drugs Gazebos can hide the holes where dead trees used to be, although the back neighbor certainly has tried her best.  She’s been friendly lately, so I decide to try to follow my Dad’s example by getting the skateboarders to un-ugly there first. 

The skateboarder and his friend said, “Wake us up early so we can work before it gets hot.”   This is a good start.  Now all I have to do is be patient when they don’t work very hard or fast and then pay them a lot.  They’ll begin to like manual labor before they know it, just like I did.  If I’m lucky, they’ll start getting possessive with the shovel and rake, just like I am with the brush and roller.

<>We woke them up at 10:00 AM; late for us, early for them.  We told them where to go and what to do.  Then, unlike my Dad, we left.  I’m more of a hands-off kind of supervisor. 

We returned a few hours later, assuming the plants would still be in pots and the yard would still have holes where dead trees used to be.  Don’t teenagers need lots of nagging to do anything but eat, sleep, and skateboard?

<>No.  The skateboarders’ shirts were full of sweat and their faces were red.  “Look what we did,” they said. 

We walked around back and for the first time since we took ownership of this fixer, one little piece of our property looked like someone cared about this place.

<>Where there were once clumps of old dirt and tree stump remains, there was now a pretty row of arborvitae.  Arborvitae aren’t pretty, but they grow fast and hide a multitude of mistakes.  Neighbors don’t need gazebos when the property line is filled with arborvitae.  Not even dogs can get through.  

I felt like I accomplished something, even if it was only handing out twenties to teenagers.  I felt like I was following my Dad’s example.  In a good way.  The skateboarders only had to plant the arborvitae one time.

<>With kids, you give them a little responsibility and you see how they do.  If they can handle it, you give them a little more.  Since the skateboarders could plant arborvitae while I sipped espresso, I decided to see what else they could do, given enough twenties. 

I quickly went out and bought several hundred more dollars’ worth of increased responsibility.  This would be a good test to see if the skateboarders are truly more responsible or if the arborvitae planting was some sort of happy sweaty accident.

<>Charlie went in their room at about 10:00 AM and said, “If this were a real job, you’d be fired by now.  Get going!” 

At about noon, right when it started to get really hot, they started working.  First they removed all the weeds by the future drainage area.  We thought we’d get someone else to fix the drainage, since it’s been half done for a year.  We know an older teenager who said he’d be interested.  I don’t know how many twenties it’ll cost, but I don’t care.  It feels good to get work done, especially when I don’t have to do the sweating.

<>Then we had the skateboarders scrape away and dig up the front yard by the house.  They filled in the holes by the exposed drainage pipes, they removed all the rocks, and they filled a couple of yard debris cans with dried grass and weeds.  They did all this in full sun and didn’t even come in to ask how much we were paying them.  Good thing: I hadn’t planned on buying anyone a Jetta. 

I was so excited to see progress, I went off with Charlie to Home Depot.  I love to return home and see lots of progress.  I left them another twenty dollar bill and said, “We have no food in the house and nothing to drink.  Taco Bell is less than a mile away.  They have good air conditioning and free drink refills so take a break when you start fainting.  Have fun.”

<>Home Depot had a large assortment of dried-up 5 for $10 McDonald’s landscaping-type plants, so I filled the trailer with even more responsibility.  I got several maple trees for this cheap price, too.  They were really dried up.  I’m starting to sound like my Dad.  He’ll buy things even if he doesn’t know what they are, if they’re cheap enough. 

Charlie worked on assembling the first kitchen cabinet while I did a little cutting in around the ceiling of the hot upstairs area.  The skateboarders kept working outside for several hours until it got too hot.  Then one would come in and cool off while the other one worked.  They kept switching off every ten minutes until they both came in for the day, all sweaty and red-faced.

<>“We’ll start up again tomorrow, as soon as we get up,” they said.  “We should be able to get it done then, okay?” 

I’ve been planning to do this job for three years now.  One more day wasn’t going to bother me even a little bit.  My Dad is very patient about these things, too.  I’m learning.

<>I overheard the skateboarders talking.  “Come over as soon as you wake up,” one of them said.  “I don’t want to wait for you if you have to sleep in.  We can work late at night if it gets too hot.”  

Who knew skateboarders would be so excited to dig in the dirt?  If I knew this is what would get them up in the morning, I would have kicked them outside with a shovel sooner. 

They haven’t even asked how much I’m planning to pay.

A little help? [] 11:57:40 PM