A new story from The Hero's Journey for The Daily ZU - read the full story at www.thedailyzu.com.When I was an adolescent and a young man, I had a problematic relationship with my father. He had an explosive temper, and, well, so did I. I remember sitting for hours next to his workbench in our basement in Chicago, watching him build a kitchen nook. My dad was very handy. An electrician by trade, he could do just about anything, tradewise. He finished that nook. It took him weeks since he’d never done anything like it before. But he finished it and it was a work of art, with bullnosed oak trim stained just the right color, and inlaid tiles like mosaic.He used oak, which he said was a mistake, looking back. Oak was hard as hell, so it was hard as hell to work with. I wanted to...