“Ahh I'm so glad this is clean; I’m going to keep it like this forever,” Is often my thought until my
room looks like it was hit by a hurricane only two weeks later. This happens to me all the time. Maybe
it’s my desk, or my room, or my schedule, or especially my work bench. After every project I feel like
there’s one new thing that doesn’t have a place, or something cuts me off, so I don’t have time to clean,
or any other myriad of reasons. However, this is one of my favorite things about my work bench, it’s
eclectic nature. New tool? There's space somewhere. New project? This scrap wood will work great.
Need space? Well, those sounds like new projects to me. This attitude is a result of how my workbench
came to be. It is not a fancy space with brand new tools in the back of a warehouse, it is a repurposed
bed frame in the back of my garage with a ramshackle collection of tools, some of which are a hundred
years old. My workbench doesn’t just collect things, it collects ideas and relationships, time and
thoughts, it’s a catchall for everything I love.
For years I used my dad’s tools for everything. His workshop was like I just described, packed to
the brim with tools bought, found, and gifted. Access to this treasure trove of tools was one of my
greatest blessings in life. It was the enabler to all my passions that I hold today. Nearly every day of the
summer, I would go downstairs to the workshop and bring up armfuls of tools and components to work
on projects with my friends. Designing go-karts, building tables, creating cardboard tanks and houses,
we started something new every week. It was tedious to take things out and put them back every time,
often taking several trips or forgetting a part or a tool just took extra time, but it was well worth it for all
the bonuses. Eventually though, I started gathering my own collection. I would pick up things from
garage sales or my dad would give me one of his old tools that he did not use much so I could call it my
own. Eventually I started to build a small collection, but where it really took off was with my neighbor. I
had been doing work for Phyllis for several years when she decided it was time to start clearing out her
house. Walking down the creaky old steps into the basement was like walking into a small hardware
store. Racks of tools from wrenches to metal sheers. Phyllis and her husband were people who seem to
have lived a thousand lives. They owned a bike shop, a real estate business, a sheet metal company,
were sailors, and skied and snowboarded all over the world. From their adventures they had a nearly
endless number of tools, and she let me have free reign over all of it.
The next few months were full of me taking home a fresh box of tools every Monday after mowing the
lawn. Hammers, wrenches, Allen keys, sheers, blades, leather working equipment, toolboxes, metal
stamps and so many other things. Eventually I really needed a space for my own tools, my own
workbench. So, I got to work. I took an old bed frame from when my sibling went to college and laid a
sheet of plywood, I got from a construction site on top. Then I used some scrap 2x4s and the rest of the
bed to create the legs and supports for my table, soon enough I had a fully functional workbench with all
my tools and equipment in easy access. Gone were the days of lugging tools, it had been my dream to
have a space like this for years.
My workbench was already full of memories and things, and it had only just been built. What I was not
expecting was that it also collected and cultivated relationships and ideas. Almost identically to how my
dad’s workbench brought me and my friends closer while we were younger, giving us access to so many
fun projects and allowing our creativity to flourish. My new workbench did the same for me in high
school, but instead of building cardboard houses out of cling wrap and tape, we were building set pieces
for my friends musical and board game tables for us all to enjoy. It became a connection point extending
all the way to the things we created.
This idea comes less from the idea of a workbench, and more from the idea of a center of
passion. Maybe you are more like my oldest sibling, an artist. Their workbench is a table, collecting their
art, supplies, skill, time, and friends. I cannot count the number of times I have walked into the dining
room to see six people sitting around the table, listening to music, and just enjoying each other's
company as they splashed beautiful art across the page. Whatever it may be, find the center of your
passion and build off that. Use it to experience life and to grow closer to what you love and the people
you love.
Frank Regarding your main concern, I think that in the first paragraph the beginning doesn’t exactly connect to
the main theme of your story. I think your theme is how your workbench isn’t just a workbench and has
become something that brings people together and I think you should focus on that a little more. You
tell us how you collected everything but kind of exclude the relationships it brings with others. Try to
make it flow more like you’re telling a story about your workbench and less like it’s a paper and choppy
like this sentence: “This attitude is a result of how my workbench came to be”. Would you say this if you
were telling someone this story?
Minor concerns: Just pay attention to grammar and editing, sometimes you’ll not be consistent in your
writing. If you add a title, I think it could help with narrowing your theme to the reader.
The paper raised the following questions: why was having a workbench so important to you besides
being able to house your equipment? Try to narrow down the theme a little more. You really only touch
on it in the beginning and the end. I think in the middle of the paper you kind of go off on a tangent
which some can stay like how eclectic it is and how everything came to be but more sentences about the
importance of the workbench and how it “collects ideas and relationships, time and thought, it’s a
catchall for everything I love.” You brough in your sibling in the last paragraph, I think if you do that, you
should connect it a little more to your workbench.
The paper surprised me in the following ways: I like how you built your own workbench, so it had a
deeper meaning because it’s truly yours and there won’t be any other like it.
Reflection I always think peer review is super helpful. I love when another set of eyes looks into my paper, a lot of
the time I get stuck in a box of thought and other input helps me break out of that. I really appreciate
the critiques and I think they’re spot on which will make revising significantly easier. The hardest part
about this process was not looking at specifics.
I enjoy editing papers because I think I am a skilled writer, but a lot of the times it’s a struggle to get my
thoughts onto the page.