The Most Important Skill by Spencer

The Most Important Skill by Spencer - October 2019 Scholarship Essay

“Thunk, thunk, thunk,” went the wood as we threw literally tons of it into the bed of a 1995 Nissan pickup. Yellow sawdust stained our clothing. Osage orange, or as we called it, hedge, put a huge strain on my 6-year-old self. Hours and hours my dad and I spent on collecting and moving the wood. I did not know the purpose at the time, but as winter came, he told me it was to keep the house warm. I believed him because I didn’t know what else to believe.
Years later, however, I learned that we could have kept the house running on electricity, for we had an electric heater; doing this would have even saved my dad time, and he could go to work instead of cutting wood. Keeping the house warm was only a small reason in comparison to the true one. So what is the real reason he had me work so hard? It’s the same as the reason he encouraged me to be a Scout.
I joined Cub Scouts at the age of 8. There are several different ranks, starting with Wolf, then going up to Webelos. I was held back only by my age. Once I was in with the Webelos, I could complete Arrow of Light, which is the highest award in Cub Scouts. A year later, I joined Boy Scouts. With my dad’s help, I zipped up the ranks until I made it to Life Scout, where I started my Eagle Project.
While working toward my Eagle, my dad prompted me to discover Salina’s Ashby House, a women’s shelter where women go to get back onto their feet. At twelve years old, I worked on one of their two-bedroom apartments that were in need of painting. I stripped the falling-apart wallpaper, put up paintable wallpaper, then primed and painted. I had never done it before; my dad and I learned it all as we went. When I was done, the apartment looked amazing. This is where the women who graduated from the Ashby house program would stay. The total hours of work that were put into the apartment were 118 hours. I personally put in about 50. Already, at age 13, I finished my Eagle award. My dad wouldn’t let me stop there, however. I kept going to the Wednesday meetings and helping the younger boys work to get their Eagle as well.
I am always extremely busy at school also. Concerning sports, I have gone out for football, cross country, wrestling, and track. I am also in Scholar's Bowl and drama. I am a year ahead of the rest of my junior class in all of my core classes, yet I still have a 4.0 GPA. This I attribute to the lessons my dad taught me while moving wood.
Was there a good reason to move all that wood when I was younger? Did my dad have an end goal in mind? Was he trying to secretly teach me something? Did I successfully learn?
“Thunk, thunk, thunk,” goes the wood as we throw it into the bed of a 1995 Nissan pickup. Perhaps 15 years from now a son of mine will be asking the same question I have asked, and I won’t tell him why we’re moving the wood; I’ll just allow him to discover one of the most important of life’s lessons my dad knew: the value of hard work.