I became a woodworker and carpenter by a weird chance. My Dad's uncle Bill was a carpenter and cabinetmaker, he must have recruited Dad to help on projects, possibly the office buildout of my Grandpa's Ford dealership. The dealership went belly up, I never met uncle Bill, but Dad recruited my brother and I to build fences, decks, a huge concrete driveway for our little Palo Alto tract home.

My early construction duty was to sit on the end of the boards Dad was sawing to length. He had a Craftsman table saw that terrified me. After high school I was too busy avoiding the Vietnam war and "going underground" to stay in college, I still had to eat and those home projects convinced me I could build stuff...now 50 years later, so weird how the time flashes by.

Your dad built the quintessential family heirloom for you, here's to many more dinners and projects around his handiwork;)