04/30/2026
Some deep thoughts by Guy Monague: What I Want My Crew and Family to Know
I may not have always said it the right way.
Sometimes I taught by getting tough. Sometimes I used humour. Sometimes I gave a life lesson when maybe you thought we were just there to cut timbers. Sometimes I pushed you to pay attention, to stop feeling sorry for yourself, to look at the work in front of you and understand that you were capable of more than people may have told you.
But underneath all of that, there was love.
Not the kind of love that always comes out soft. Sometimes I did not even know how to name it. I just knew I wanted you to learn. I wanted you to stand a little taller. I wanted you to look at something you built and feel something good inside yourself.
That is why I kept saying, “Years from now, you can point to this and tell your kids, ‘I built that.’”
Because I know what that can do for a person.
A building can hold more than wood, steel, posts, beams, mortises, and tenons. It can hold a story. It can hold struggle. It can hold mistakes. It can hold laughter. It can hold the proof that someone stayed with you long enough to teach you.
Maybe that is what I have been building all along.
Not just timber frames.
Not just porches.
Not just community buildings.
I have been trying to build pride in people. I have been trying to build something my family can carry. I have been trying to build something that says we were here, we worked, we learned, we struggled, we laughed, and we made something beautiful with our own hands.
And maybe, after all these years, I am learning that the feeling underneath it was love.
