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We recently had a sliding glass door installed on our deck.

I looked at the complicated installation directions. Unless you were a rocket scientist, I don鈥檛 know how anyone could figure them out, but my carpenter did.

In high school, I had an excellent industrial arts teacher. He had one flaw: he was very intimidating, at least for me. Because of this, I never took any of the elective industrial arts classes.

I can build a bird feeder or refinish and fix antique furniture, but to do any remodeling, put up a wall, fix a garage door, or build onto our house, I call a carpenter.

I hope you watched and listened to President Carter鈥檚 eulogies. You had to be impressed at the scope and depth of his gifts. Carter did these things: he helped countries have fair elections; he was a farmer, writer and poet; he helped solve health problems in poverty-stricken countries; he led Bible study classes and built homes. He was an amazing man.

Not only could Jimmy Carter build a home, but he could also build the furniture to put inside the home.

A prerequisite for being a president of the United States should be having a carpentry background. Consider all of the knowledge you have to have in building a house.

You have to have above-average math skills. You have to know how to read and figure things out. You have to understand how to read a blueprint. You have to have an imagination. You have to know something about engineering. How about hand and eye coordination?

You must also be resilient, positive, and committed and learn something about anger management when things don鈥檛 go well. Let鈥檚 not forget how to prepare a budget.

Many years ago, I wrote a column about parenting. In it, I claimed that to be a good parent, everyone should first have to put together a Sears swing set.

I remember the day I purchased one for my kids. It took me the entire day, but I finally got it up before nightfall so my kids could play on it for a few minutes before bed.

To put it together, I needed cognitive skills. I had to read the directions and discern what they meant. I also needed emotional learning because I had to keep my emotions inside while the kids pestered me to hurry up and assemble it.

I also needed some knowledge that we educators call psychomotor skills, which means having some hand-eye coordination ability.

Well, I did get it together and was proud of myself, which is another feature of being a carpenter. Carpenters take pride in their work, and if you are a good carpenter, you can have all the work you want and more, which means you can become a contractor.

Not many former presidents were carpenters and none can say they helped bring lasting peace to the Middle East like Carter did when he brokered the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel that still stands.

In September of 1978, Carter invited President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Camp David to help build a framework for peace. The framework has held up, and after some finishing touches, a treaty was signed in March of 1979.

Carter gleaned the basics of carpentry on his father's farm, where the Great Depression meant being a jack-of-all-trades.

Carter said, 鈥淪ince childhood, woodworking has played an important role in my life. It has given me a sense of belonging and the feelings of continuity and timelessness that the craft has brought me, which are most gratifying.鈥�

We all should be gratified that we have carpenters.

Riddle: I am thinking of something weightless, but you can see it. It will also make things lighter. What is it? Answer: Holes. Presidents would be better off spending less time playing golf and more time drilling holes in lumber.

I want to thank Trek North and Voyageurs schools for distributing A Class Called Hope flyers to their teachers.

John R. Eggers of Bemidji is a former university professor and area principal. He also is a writer and public speaker.