For Christmas in 1979, Dad built me a barn.

Not a store-bought plastic one — a replica of our family barn, made of wood, with hinged doors and removable roofs over the stalls and hay section so my small hands could reach in and rearrange the universe.

I had an International tractor with dual wheels, a John Deere, a gravity wagon, and a little wooden wagon Dad also built, unpainted. I used stove pipes as silos, a chicken waterer as another grain bin. The sandbox was my county, my state, my world.

Looking back, that gift says so much: • A father who was exhausted, working hard, still taking the time to build something by hand. • A kid whose play was rooted in the landscape he actually lived in — not some abstract fantasy city, but fields and barns and equipment. • A family culture where making was love.

When I build wagons and cabinets and puppet stages now, I’m just extending that lineage.

Dad built me a small version of his world. Now I’m building small versions of mine.