I’ve always been impatient. So much so, it could almost be considered pathological. I’ve had to learn patience like a religious observance, and it chafes, it does. My father is one of those people for whom the act of doing is a pleasure in and of itself. An attitude I’ve been able to emulate consistently in only one thing. He was once a gunsmith and I recall watching him—for short periods of time only, mind you—sanding a rifle stock. He’d work on it for days, running the papers in ever finer grains over the wood until he had achieved such a penetrating perfection as might be possible before moving on to painstakingly applying the varnish…ah, he was rapt. …
