This old screwdriver from my dad’s workshop now hangs in mine and sees regular use. My dad was a deeply practical man who respected things that lasted, which this tool certainly did. It has always felt good in the hand possibly because of its contradictory tactile signals: the super hard and smooth acetate handle, yellowed with age, and the ribbed, ridged, and well-nicked textures in contrast. Its square shaft takes pliers or Vise-Grips perfectly for the truly stuck screw. I’ve had to file the tip a few times to recreate a flat edge.
Flecks of yellow paint reveal something of this screwdriver’s history. Like each of my five older brothers, I painted property lines for our family’s small timber company as a teenager, toting a bucket of yellow paint and a machete (for removing the pine bark, not for personal protection). Of course, the screwdriver was to pry off the always-stuck lid from the paint can. My last summer of line-painting was 1983, and by that time this sturdy tool had already accumulated some decades of wear.
Yet, its actual age was a niggling mystery to me. I was sure the “VANADIUM” imprint would provide the critical, discrete search term that would definitively date this implement. Unfortunately, there seems to be low curiosity online about non-remarkable vintage tools, and the best I could do was a hazy guess of the 1950s or 1960s.
This screwdriver bore the Craftsman label, that mid-century, middle-America, middle-market nameplate of affordable quality. Sears sold Craftsman tools for 90 years, exactly my father’s lifespan, and very nearly during the same time period. Craftsman was the reliable choice for parsimonious homeowners everywhere, earning brand equity before the term existed. Today, Sears is a smoldering heap of liquidation, lawsuits, and languishing stores with mostly empty shelves. The company sold off the Craftsman brand to Black & Decker in 2017, extracting a speck of cash from this storied line even as Sears slid into the retail abyss.
I remember my dad praising the Craftsman brand (“fine tools!”), though it never gave him the same frisson of homeowner joy as discovering a new epoxy. He revered the sacred liturgy of combining resin and hardener into a new creation to mend my mom’s latest ceramic casualty. The moment of transubstantiation among the elements could arise from a twin-chambered jar. Or crushable capsules that melded into a holy adhesive union. He once came home elated with twin ribbons of taffy-like epoxy — I remember brightly colored yellow and blue — which, when intertwined, created their mystical bond that he could apply liberally to a cracked serving dish or vase. However, unlike the plastic surgeon’s craft, my dad’s handiwork usually remained evident.
My favorite epoxy device was the dual-cylinder, oversized syringe; when you pressed the twin pistons, the elements blended during extrusion. Regardless of how the epoxies did their magic, they tolerated no redo or sequel. In fact, my father’s epoxy collection was more like a graveyard of seized up chemicals, paralyzed and contorted after their first use, but his optimism and frugality wouldn’t tolerate discarding a tube when there was some product left. Like with a durable screwdriver bought at a reasonable price and passed down, the utility of things ranked high on his list.
For years (well into young adulthood, actually) my jeans, boots, and workshirts sported bright yellow — small reminders of hot summers slashing off pine bark and splashing great gobs of paint on tree trunks to mark some property line deep in the Louisiana woods. Those garments are long gone, but a couple of vivid flecks still adorn this sturdy tool in a nod to mundane quality, and a dad’s lessons in practicality.
