When I was a boy growing up in the country back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, my family owned a sawmill just like the one shown above. My father owned and managed the operation. My grandfather operated the saw. Three or four local men were hired to help cut the logs, haul the logs, unload the logs, carry away the slabs and stack the rough lumber to air-dry. My brother, Gary, and I were too young at the time to do any of the dangerous work so we would play, watch and learn. All of us, young and old, would have to keep an eye out for dangerous venomous copperhead snakes hiding under the slabs and stacked-to-dry lumber whether we worked or played!
By the mid 1950s, my father had turned his sawmill business into Knott's Supply, a company offering everything one needed to build a house - from plumbing, paint and light fixtures to septic tanks, storm windows and roofing. I left there for the seminary in 1958. My year-younger- brother, Gary, started his own rough lumber business around the mid 1960's. My youngest brother, Mark, took over the ownership of Knott's Supply in 1984 and expanded it drastically into the thriving business that it is today.
It seems, from all I know about the Knott Family history, some kind of construction has been in our DNA for as long as anyone can remember, whether that part of the family lived in Maryland, Kentucky, Oregon or California. I may not have gone into the construction business, but I do have a reputation as a priest for taking a leading role in many remodeling and construction projects whether they have been the seven homes that I have owned, a few churches or chapels, a coffee shop, a teaching kitchen, overnight accommodations for senior priests, an orphanage and even a Family Life Center and Guest House. Building and remodeling? It's a Knott thing for sure!
Yes, I grew up like a "Walton!" These days, as I look back on those days, I find myself grateful for many of those difficult experiences during such a challenging time. They actually prepared me for some of the wonderful and unexpected world-wide experiences that followed. Looking back, and especially when I reflect on my recently concluded project at my home parish of St. Theresa, I feel as if I have begun my return home from my very own personal "quest." In literature, a "quest" is an adventurous journey undergone by the main character of a story. The main character usually meets with and overcomes a series of obstacles, returning home in the end with the benefits of knowledge and experience from his quest.
I am still open to a few more adventures, hopefully a bit closer to home, but I find these words of T. S. Eliot personally applicable. "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
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