Title:       The Story of the Axe
Author:  Jeff Spiker
Date:       March 2007

This story was told to me once by my father who is no longer with us.  I will try to tell it and the circumstances under which it was told to me..... 

Once, when I was very young, my father was chopping wood with an axe in the front yard and, wanting to help, I came up behind him and started to say something.  But, as soon as I started the first word, he spun around and yelled at me, “Don’t you EVER come up behind someone with an axe!” 

My father was very strict and we were all pretty much afraid of him especially when he looked like he did at that moment!  So, with hurt feelings, I turned to leave when he said, “Wait. I want to tell you a story.”  He pointed to a scar on his forehead and told me that, when HE was a little boy, his father was in the front yard chopping wood and, wanting to help, he came up behind him…………

My father died on the twenty first of February 2000.  When I looked at his body in the casket, I saw that scar and I thought of this story.