⛵ Next Spring

This one’s quieter. Slower. But maybe the one I’ll remember most.

This story comes from my memoir, Barefoot and Bulletproof: The Dirty Little Glover Boys—a collection of true stories from Picher, Oklahoma, where we learned to launch off rooftops, build our own bikes, and love hard through the storms.

Not every legacy is carved in stone.
Some are welded, wired, and sanded into being—piece by piece, by hands that never stopped moving.

This one’s about my dad. A builder. A craftsman. A man who believed in hard work—and the hope of next spring.

If you’ve ever loved someone who kept the world from falling apart—this is for you.

If there was ever a man who embodied the phrase “jack of all trades,” it was my dad, Bob Glover. He was a master carpenter by profession, but that label barely scratched the surface. He could do almost anything—framing, electrical, welding, plumbing, cabinetry, drywall, roofing—you name it. If it had bolts, boards, or a blueprint, Dad could build it. The only thing that gave him real trouble was electronics—and even then, he usually found a workaround.

He built onto and remodeled our house over the years, reshaping it with his own hands. When we were in grade school, he constructed a slide-in camper shell for his Ford pickup so we could take it on family outings. Later, he rescued an old fiberglass boat, rebuilt the shell, redesigned the interior, and gave it a second life. And when he got a wild hair, he built a 16-foot camper trailer from the ground up. He welded the frame, skinned the shell, ran the wiring, and handcrafted the cabinetry and furniture inside. We used that camper for years.

When Dad wanted something, he didn’t shop—he built.

Dad was always out in the garage. Always moving. Grass didn’t grow under his feet—literally or figuratively. His hands were so calloused and cracked from decades of hard labor that he had to use Corn Huskers Lotion just to keep the skin from splitting open. He never complained. He just kept working. And working.

There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.
And when we’d listen, he taught us to do it too.

Dennis picked up more of it than I did. He had the patience and the curiosity to follow Dad step for step. I was the older, more independent one—stubborn, and a little more prone to fun than function. Still, the lessons stuck, even when I didn’t know they were sticking.

Two stories say everything you need to know about my dad.

The first happened when Dennis and I were bugging him for motorcycles. Everyone had one—our friends, our neighbors… even little Ronnie Yankowski. We wanted one more than anything. But they weren’t in the budget, and Dad would never say it out loud. Instead, one day after work, he pulls into the driveway with the bed of his pickup full of metal. Frames. Wheels. Seats. Handlebars. And two big boxes of parts.

“You want motorcycles?” he said. “Here you go. Build them.”

And so we did—with his help. Dennis painted his red. I painted mine orange and black so people would think it was a Harley-Davidson. Yeah, right.

The sailboat and the man who built it

Chuck Goldenberg, owner of Newell Coach and a man who thought the world of my dad, once asked him if he could build him a sailboat.

“A sailboat?” my dad said.
“Yeah,” Chuck said. “Thirty-nine feet, eleven and three-quarters.”

That measurement might sound oddly specific, but there was a reason. The plans were metric. Drawn by an Australian architect. In 1970s Northeast Oklahoma, no one was using metric. So Dad took the plans and quietly went to work, converting every last detail to imperial units and building it piece by piece after hours and on weekends in a spare building at Newell.

Chuck would drop by and ask, “Bob, when’s she gonna be done?”
Dad’s answer never changed: “Next spring.”

That answer came for three years.

And then one spring, she was done.

The sailboat was spectacular. Gleaming gel coat. Rich teak wood. Every line crisp, every joint perfect. A masterpiece. But the best part—the part that still gets me—was when they lowered her into the water.

She leveled out exactly at the waterline.

They didn’t have to add a single pound of ballast. Not one. She floated perfectly, because Dad had calculated and executed every detail to the decimal.

That’s who he was.
Superior quality. Outstanding work ethic. Rock-solid dependability. True to his word.

He never sought credit. Never made excuses. Never cut corners.
Bob Glover was a man’s man.

And everything I am today—I owe to him.

“Next spring,” he always said. A quiet promise. A builder’s prayer.

Oh, and by the way, they christened her Next Spring.

That name stuck with me. It wasn’t just a punchline anymore—it became something deeper. “Next Spring” was the way my dad saw the world. No matter how hard the winter, he always believed the thaw would come. If something didn’t go right today, you showed up again tomorrow. You planted. You prepared. You worked with hope.

There was always next spring.

Robert (Bob) Glover

The finest man I’ve ever known.

When his mind betrayed him

In the final years of his life, when Lewy body dementia started to take its toll, that mindset mattered more than ever. The man who had built everything suddenly couldn’t fix what was happening inside his own mind.

And yet, his habits held steady. His spirit held strong. Even when things got foggy, he still knew what mattered most.

Especially Mom.

After her stroke, when she was moved into a nursing home, Dad made the drive every single day to be with her. Even when he couldn’t remember what day it was. Even when he was tired or confused. He just went.

That’s what love looks like after fifty years. You just go.

When he was diagnosed, our family started thinking more seriously about the hereditary side of things. We looked back at his grandfather—my great-grandfather—and remembered that his death certificate listed “senility” as the cause. We’d brushed it off when we were younger, but now it felt different. Real. And honestly, a little scary.

We also remembered Grandad Ben—Dad’s dad—who spent his final years slipping into the fog of Alzheimer’s. A man full of stories who, in the end, couldn’t finish them. It felt like the forgetting was gaining ground.

That’s part of why I’m writing all of this. I don’t want to forget. I don’t want my family to forget. I want Dennis’ grandkids—and mine—to know where we came from. Who built the world we played in. And what mattered.

I don’t want this book to be sad. I want it to be solid. Like Dad. Quiet. Unshakable. And full of life.

Because he wasn’t just building boats or houses or campers—he was building boys. He was building men.

And even now, I can hear his voice, see his pencil behind his ear, watch him checking the level and saying, “Measure twice, cut once.”

That’s the legacy I carry.
That’s why I write.

For the man who taught me to build—and to believe in next spring.

And somewhere out there, I swear, the wind still waits.

Who built your world?

If you’ve got a Next Spring story—someone who showed up, built quietly, and kept the wind in your sails—drop it in the comments.
Let’s remember them right.

And if this story stayed with you, I hope you’ll stick around for more.

👉 Subscribe for more true stories of grit, memory, and mischief.

You’ll find more chapters like this one—from the chat piles of Picher to the back porches that built us. Every one of them told with heart, humor, and just enough dust to sting your eyes.