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Hey there! It’s been a long time, we know. With that being said we are here to introduce a small series to you wonderful readers. This year, our final was to write a 1,500 word feature story about someone or something that is extraordinary to us. We have a great variety of stories for you all to read and we all can’t wait for you to read them. We will post around 2 stories a week so keep a look out for all these fantastic stories!
Timothy Johnson
Journalism I
November 7, 2016
There are a lot of special and beloved people in the Avondale community. Some could be the friendly guy at the supermarket. Another could be your favorite teacher at your school. All of those people may be real friendly people with a big heart, and we have many of those types of people in our lives. I know a special person in my life, but it is neither the guy at the supermarket or a teacher. It is my own father. There are many things that separate him from other average parents. For example, his creative and inventing skills.
Timothy Johnson Sr, has quite a creative eye when it comes to building things. He works as a carpenter for a company called Pulice Construction. Sure, it might not sound very interesting to you, but believe me, it only gets better. My dad has has worked on many bridges and highways around the West Valley, such as the Loop 101 and 303. He has also worked on other projects, such as the Lake Pleasant Water Treatment Plant, pouring concrete, and the Intel Building (which manufactures computer chips). Because of his life as a constructor, he is very smart and inventive. He is also very skilled when it comes to working with tools. If you were to look at the things that he has worked on, you would be quite impressed. In my opinion, the best things that my dad created were these small little buildings that I played with along with my toy cars. There were many of them, including a miniature version of a jail, a school, and a hotel. It might sound pretty odd, but believe me, it was all pretty interesting, and it made up a huge part of my childhood.
My dad’s inventing skills date as far back as when I was a little kid in elementary school. When I was growing up, I remember I was obsessed with the die-cast models of the cars from the Disney/Pixar Cars franchise. I would buy every single toy car that ever came out, from Lightning McQueen to Tow Mater to all of their other Radiator Springs friends. I played with these toys every day. I loved them very much. I remember the bright, sunny days of my childhood where I would go outside onto the driveway of my yard, draw little roads with chalk, and race these cars on the roads. I had some pretty good times playing with McQueen and his pals. However, as time went by, racing the cars every day started to get a little …. old. I wanted something more exciting to do, but I did not want to abandon my little friends. They meant a lot to me. I wanted more of an adventure with them. But the real question is.. What? It was around that time when my dad came up with a brilliant idea. One sunny day in June, my dad decided to build small houses for the toy cars.
As the summer vacation went on, my dad built all kinds of houses that I would use as little playsets for my toy cars. These buildings ranged from a school to a courthouse to even a small version of Flo’s V8 Cafe from the Cars movies! I loved these little houses very much, and I had all kinds of fun adventures with them. With all of the houses my dad built, I created my own little city for the cars to live. I had so much fun playing with the cars and the houses, and to this day, I still look back to those days as the best parts of my childhood.
I interviewed my dad on his work as a carpenter, and he had several interesting things to say about his job. “I enjoy watching you play with your cars every day. It makes me happy to see my son having fun. You know, I just thought it would be a great addition to your playtime. I want you to have more fun”. He is happy about building the houses for me, since I enjoyed playing with them very much when I was little. He also said that he is proud of his work as a carpenter; not only does he build things for me, but he also works on bridges and highways around the West Valley It makes him happy passing by roads that he has participated in working on, including the Loop 101, 202, and many other major freeways. When I take car rides with him, he passes by some of the roads that he worked on. He always points them out to me, and I think, “Wow, my dad participated in building that. Impressive.” Some of his best skills include his creativity and his pride in his work, but his worst skills include overthinking things at times. If he was able to improve his work in any way, he would consider taking a refresher course in blueprint reading, as blueprints are always changing. He wants to learn how to understand them better when he has to build something according to the directions.
My mom was the second person that I interviewed. “He is a very hard worker”, she says about my dad. “I am blessed to have married somebody as smart and talented as him.” In her opinion, his best skills are being creative and his ability able to make things out of simple everyday objects, but his weaknesses include trying to be way too perfect at what he does. When asked if she has any words of encouragement for him, she says “I always tell him to be careful. Because, well, his job is very dangerous. Sometimes he is hanging 100 feet from the air, working on bridges. It isn’t very safe. I worry about him. Every single day I wake up and I pray for him to stay safe. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him”. My mom comments that she likes his job, because he a very good provider and he likes what he does. The downsides of his job are, according to her, the fact that he has to work outside all year. Sometimes it is too hot, and sometimes it is too cold. It isn’t very comfortable having to work outside, battling the weather. Sometimes, he comes home very tired from working in the sun. He often has cramps, and he is often tired due to heat exhaustion. He has to drink lots of liquid in order to hydrate again.
My uncle Pete was the third person that I interviewed. Pete is my dad’s brother-in-law and one of his closest friends. Pete is impressed by my dad’s job, and comments that it is interesting because my dad is able to help him around his house when he needs it. According to Pete, his best skills are his knowledge of measuring, and how he is able to cut things to fit. However, his weaknesses include “trying to do things his way” all the time. “I like his job as a carpenter because he is able to do a lot of home improvements himself without the need of help from other people. He is very smart at fixing stuff”. Similar to what my mom said, Pete thinks the worst part about my dad’s work is having to work outside in the heat. “His job also pretty dangerous as well, you never know what might happen, working on highways where other cars are driving”, Pete says.
To sum it all up, my father is simply a very interesting person. What I like the most about him is his building skills. He builds all sorts of things not only for me, but all around the house, and around the valley. If you’re ever driving down one of the freeways or bridges around the west valley – you would have most likely driven over something that my dad took a part in working on. He has done a lot of interesting things in his life, and for that, I thank him.
To this day, even though I find myself a bit too old to play with my toy cars and the buildings that my dad created, I have continued to hold onto them all of these years. If you go into my back yard, you would see all of the houses that my dad created. They have been affected from the weather over the years, but they are still quite sturdy. My little cousins come over often, and when they do, I let them play with the toy cars and the buildings. It makes me very satisfied seeing them playing with them and having fun – it brings back the happy memories of when I would play with them every day. With the exception of my cousins, I still continue to protect my toy cars and my buildings with my life. I will never let anything bad happen to them because .. they mean a lot to me. And they made up my childhood.
