Dad’s “Retirement” Adventure
After my dad retired from Bryce Hospital following a solid 30-year career, he wasn’t the type to just sit on the porch and watch the world go by. He belonged outside, where the air was clear and there was honest work to be done. He found plenty of ways to keep busy, but the absolute biggest venture he stumbled into—the one that truly fed his love for the outdoors and his deep-seated work ethic—was cutting and delivering firewood.
He went all in, gathering up the ultimate woodsman’s toolkit: a pickup truck, chainsaws, wedges, sledgehammers, and a heavy-duty hydraulic log splitter that someone had custom-made and sold to him. Dad thrived on the sweat and satisfaction of manual labor. Whenever he got a new customer, he’d find out exactly how long the wood needed to be for their specific hearth. Then, he’d cut an entire truckload to that precise size. It was always oak or red oak—he wouldn’t touch pine or cedar. It had to be the good, hard stuff that required real muscle to handle.
Now, when I say Dad cut wood, you’re probably picturing him wandering out into the woods, chainsaw in hand, felling timber. Oh no—not usually.
Dad did things a bit bigger. He would call someone up and order a trailer load of logs. And I don’t mean a dinky little trailer you haul behind a regular pickup truck. Nope—Dad had a massive, full-sized log truck roll right into the yard. Then, someone would come by with a loader to lift those giant logs off the truck and stack them on the property.
It was always a strange, wild sight to come home and see a literal mountain of timber sitting in the yard, but honestly, if you knew my dad and his need to stay active under the open sky, you knew it wasn’t really that odd.
From that mountain of wood, Mom and Dad would work long and hard, tackling the pile one order at a time. They’d cut it, split it, load it, deliver it, and unload it at the customer’s house. It was a true team effort under the sun and wind, though Mom was usually the mastermind operating the hydraulic splitter and waving the measuring stick to make sure every piece was just right.
It was incredibly hard, bone-weary physical labor for both of them, but Dad genuinely enjoyed every bit of it. He loved the smell of the fresh-cut oak, the sting of the sawdust, and the simple, profound joy of a hard day’s work in the fresh air.
Eventually, I think Mom and Dad finally realized it was just too much. He was retired, after all, and he needed to actually be retired. So, after a little gentle encouragement from Mom, he finally sold the last of the firewood and parted with the homemade log splitter.
Looking back, it was quite an adventure, and it was certainly profitable. But more than that, it was a testament to a man who simply loved the outdoors and never lost his passion for a job well done. Still, I think just about everyone—except for his loyal customers—was glad to see that big log pile vanish from the yard for good.