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In each family, there is something that has been passed down from generation to generation. A man named Scott Russell Sanders wrote an essay titled, “The Inheritance of Tools”. In this essay, he tells about a finishing hammer that has been passed down to him from his grandfather, to his father, and that will be passed down to his children. He reflects on the experiences he had because of this hammer and his father. He goes above and beyond describing why this hammer is so important in his family and what it actually means. The hammer plays an important role in his essay; it ties together the generations in his family. He starts out by explaining the meaning of this hammer. He says, “The grain in hickory is crossed and knotty, and therefore tough, hard to split, like the grain in the two men who owned this hammer before me” (p. 185.) This quote symbolizes the way the story works. The hammer is connected to these generations and explains how the relationship between him, his father and his grandfather are so strong like the wood. The story starts out with Scott receiving a phone call about his father’s death. He has just finished building a wall in his house using the hammer that has been passed down to him. When he receives the phone call, he starts to reflect on how important the hammer really is and everything he has learned from his father. Her starts to remember various memories he had with his father. He remembers the first time he realized he wanted to learn how to build things. He went outside to call his father in for dinner when he was astonished by the sound of the hammer hitting the nail. His father was up in the roof and he was watching him hit the hammer yet the sound of it was delayed. This to Scott was amazing. He would watch his father, “He would pull a nail from the pouch at his waist, bring the hammer down, and a moment later the thunk of the blow would reach my ears.
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