I frequently credit my father with teaching me about duct tape, zip ties, and pry bars.

The truth is that my first husband, Chester, convinced me of the value of duct tape.  He called it “200 MPH tape” and spoke with a gleam in his eye of slapping lengths of silver on hot cars in the pit stop of race tracks.  My second husband, Dennis, introduced me to the versatility of zip ties.  He used them to corral computer cords, secure luggage tags, and bag trash.  If you opened my junk drawer today, you’d see an assortment pack of 100 zip ties and a fat roll of duct tape.

But my father did teach me how to use a good little pry bar.  I have his, which I wrestled from my sister’s hands when we divided his tools.  I often use it.  Just yesterday, I pried open a closet door, the handle of which had fallen to the floor for the hundredth time.  It’s about a foot long, made of iron, and has paint spatters the color of the first bedroom that I had to myself at home.  It lies in the junk drawer, next to my Phillips screwdrivers, two pairs of pliers, a hammer that might belong to somebody else, and a couple of wire cutters.

My father did teach me a few lessons besides how to wield a pry bar.  Never draw to an inside straight, don’t sit with your back to the door, always play the house odds — unless you’ve violated the first rule and Lady Luck rewarded you.  He also taught me the value of silence between spaces and of reading the newspaper every day.

I only got a few things from my father.  His love of wood; last name; his poet’s eyes; his fragile skin; his pry bar.  It’s not much.  But it’s what he had to give.