100 Things Every Boy Should Learn From His Grandfather

Hand this list to your grandfather with a cup of coffee and ask him to pick ten. Ten is a year of Saturdays. If he's gone, borrow an uncle, a father or the old man down the street who still fixes his own mower.

Hands and tools

1. Carry a pocketknife. Keep it sharp, because the dull one is the one that slips.
2. Measure twice, cut once. Then watch him measure a third time.
3. Put every tool back where you found it, cleaner than it came.
4. Change a tire in the driveway, not for the first time in the rain.
5. Check the oil. Learn what the dipstick is telling you.
6. Jump a dead battery: red to dead, red to donor, black to donor, black to bare metal.
7. Sharpen a blade on a whetstone at one steady angle.
8. Drive a nail without bending it or your thumb.
9. Tie a bowline, a clove hitch and a square knot without looking.
10. Find the main water shutoff before the pipe breaks.
11. Use a level. The house may be crooked. The shelf shouldn't be.
12. Read a tape measure down to the sixteenth.
13. Match the screwdriver to the screw. Stripped heads are a choice.
14. Try to fix it before you buy a new one.
15. Wear the safety glasses. You get two eyes, and he's using his.

Work and money

1. Show up ten minutes early. Fifteen if it's his job.
2. Do what you were asked, then go find the next thing.
3. Pay back what you owe before anyone asks.
4. Shake hands firm and dry, look the man in the eye, and learn his name.
5. Put the first dollar of every paycheck away before you spend a cent.
6. Count your change.
7. Buy the good version of anything you'll use every day.
8. Don't lend what you can't afford to lose. Give it instead, and forget it.
9. Learn what interest does to a credit card balance. It works hard for the bank.
10. Keep the receipt on anything over fifty dollars.
11. Do the dirty job first. It doesn't get cleaner while you wait.
12. Mow a neighbor's lawn for free once, and never mention it.
13. Agree on the price before the work starts.
14. Your word is the whole contract. Keep it when it costs you.
15. Don't brag about money. Nobody who has it does.

Manners

1. Hat off indoors and at the table. Keep it off through grace.
2. "Yes, sir." "No, ma'am." They never expire.
3. Stand when an older person walks into the room.
4. Open the door for whoever's behind you, and don't wait for thanks.
5. Eat what's served and say thank you for it.
6. Write a thank-you note by hand. It takes four minutes.
7. Put the phone away when somebody's talking to you.
8. Stand for the flag and the anthem, hand over your heart.
9. Walk over and introduce yourself to the new kid.
10. Take the smallest piece. Offer the last one.
11. Carry the groceries, the luggage, the casserole. Don't ask first.
12. Bring something when you visit: a pie, coffee, a load of firewood.
13. Let him finish the story, even the fourth time.
14. Leave a place cleaner than you found it.
15. Never say about a man what you wouldn't say to his face.

Character

1. Tell the truth when it costs you. The lie costs more later.
2. Say "I was wrong." Three words, no "but."
3. Apologize first, even when it's only half your fault.
4. Step in for the kid getting picked on.
5. Keep every promise to a child. They keep count.
6. Don't gossip. People who listen to it know you'll do it to them.
7. Do the right thing when no one's watching. That's the only real test.
8. Be slow to anger. A temper is a leash someone else gets to hold.
9. Lose well. Shake hands and mean it.
10. Win quietly.
11. Tell a friend no when no is right. Real friends survive it.
12. Don't complain about what you can't change: weather, traffic, the umpire.
13. Treat every girl as somebody's daughter, because she is.
14. Own it. Nobody else broke the window.
15. Finish what you start, even the small stuff.

Outdoors and self-reliance

1. Build a fire with one match: tinder, kindling, then logs.
2. Bait a hook, clean what you catch, and eat it.
3. Read a map and a compass. Batteries die.
4. Know which way is north without a phone.
5. Learn to handle a firearm safely before you ever fire one.
6. Start on a .22 and paper. Earn the bigger caliber.
7. Pack out more trash than you brought in.
8. Check the forecast and tell someone where you're going.
9. Dress in layers. Cotton holds the cold when it's wet.
10. Skip a stone five times. Practice is mandatory.
11. Sit still in the woods for an hour and see who shows up.
12. Close the gate behind you on land that isn't yours.
13. Know poison ivy on sight: leaves of three, leave it be.
14. Back a trailer in an empty lot before you need to at a boat ramp.
15. Grow something and watch it all season. Start with tomatoes.

Home and family

1. Cook a steak on the grill without cutting it open to check.
2. Make coffee his way. Then find your own.
3. Sew on a button and iron a shirt.
4. Wash the reds by themselves, once, and learn why.
5. Call your grandmother on her birthday without being reminded.
6. Learn the family stories well enough to tell them right.
7. Know your great-grandfather's name and what he did for work.
8. Eat dinner at the table, phones in another room.
9. Support the baby's head. Then relax, because you're holding a person.
10. Look after your mother, especially when she says she's fine.
11. Marry well, then treat her like you meant it.
12. Be a father who shows up for the games and the plain Tuesdays.
13. Check on the neighbor who lives alone.
14. When your wife asks you to fix something, fix it the first time she asks.
15. Say "I love you" out loud while there's someone to hear it.

The long game

1. Read old books. They're still around for a reason.
2. Walk it off when you're angry. Come back when you're not.
3. Listen twice as much as you talk.
4. Ask old men questions, then be quiet long enough to hear the answers.
5. Take a nap. A man who can nap is a man at peace.
6. Know your neighbors' names, and their dogs'.
7. Vote, and know what you're voting for.
8. Read the whole Constitution once. Learn the Second Amendment's twenty-seven words by heart.
9. Save the old photographs and write the names on the back.
10. Start becoming the man your grandson will make a list about.

If you'd rather work through the outdoor half first, start with 100 Things Every Outdoorsman Should Know How to Do. And when you're ready to look ahead, 100 Things Every Man Should Do Before He Turns Forty picks up where this one stops.