Napolean Bonaparte is famous for saying that a soldier would do anything for him if awarded a pretty piece of ribbon to decorate his uniform.  He was referring, of course, to medals and accommodations for valor, but I have found this to be true in other, less dangerous contexts.  One of the many rungs I clung to on my way toward manhood was made of cloth, and I can still remember the pride I took in tying it around my waist.  It was a nail apron – free from the place we bought lumber for a big project at my grandparents’ place up on York Hill.  The apron somehow signified importance.  The other kids did not get one.  Only me and my cousin, Eric.  We were somewhere in the throes of adolescence, and for whatever reason, the men we looked up to thought it fit and proper to bestow upon us an article befitting our new rank.  We were no longer told to get out of the way, go play, you’re going to get hurt.  We were now outfitted with the stuff of men or, at least, approaching manhood, and we took on our role with a seriousness that was only a dress rehearsal for the real seriousness to come.  We didn’t know it then, but we were invited to work and learn in a dangerous place where the floor was still just a piece of plywood, where electrical cords and men carrying cumbersome burdens crisscrossed in tight and dangerous spaces.  And the men we aspired to be like hollered and beckoned: affirmed the right measurements, sounded their pleasure when a piece fit, summoned anybody within earshot to bring them this tool or that.  It was good sweat, honest sweat.  And I was invited to join the efforts, not as a child but as someone who just might be trusted if given the chance. 

I submit to you, dear listeners, that we might adopt as a solution to so many of our current ills the following: call forth the best in people and hold them to account.  Not out of meanness or capricious spite but out of the belief that they can.  They are able to measure up.  They are capable of accomplishing lofty goals.  Thanks be to God that I had men in my life who thought this about me.  I wear my apron every day.  And when the opportunity arises, I hand one over to some young person who could use it – really use it – even when the world continues its bleating warning that it’s unsafe, it’s unbecoming.  No.  The fearfully and wonderfully made know better.  It is a message that was never to remain sheathed. 

Here is a poem I wrote.  I hope it lands well. 

Apron 

I got one for free 

down at Carter’s Lumber –  

a nail apron I 

fastened around my teenage 

waist and filled importantly 

with prickly handfuls of eight pennies. 

My cousin, Eric, had one too, and together 

we framed the room above 

the garage while 

our fathers, uncles, and grampa 

measured, cut, pounded nails themselves, 

hollered in the way men do 

when the sun is shining and 

there is good work to be done. 

And I was among them, my 

apron, the uniform 

of competent men, common visionaries with 

circular saws and levels, 

chalk lines and squares, 

toiling for a single purpose 

with humble might until 

gramma called us all to 

boilt dinner or ham, and I would 

hook my hammer into 

the apron’s cloth ties, creak 

down the wooden ladder, and 

take my place in line –  

a budding man among 

the weathered, the weary, the worn 

whose calloused palms had already 

caressed a woman and cradled 

an infant’s head, 

whose aprons were leather, 

tried, and true.