This worried Matt. He liked his friends. He didn’t want to lose them but he didn’t know what
to do about it. He had always been like this. Try as he might, at times things would build up like a
volcano until he erupted. Matt felt it was outside his control. What could he do?
One Saturday morning his dad came home from the hardware store and said, “Matt, I’ve got a
present for you.” Out of the shopping bag he pulled a brand-new hammer and bag of big, shiny nails.
He got an old baked-bean can and tipped the nails into the empty container. Handing Matt the
brand-new hammer and can of nails, he said, “Every time you get angry, go outside and hammer a
nail into the wooden fence that runs down the side of the house.”
At first, Matt thought his old man must be going crazy or something. Perhaps he’d been under
too much pressure at work, but Matt gave a shrug. He had tried everything else, why not do what
his father had said?
Each time he got angry at home he went and hammered a nail in the side fence. If he got angry
at school he’d remember how many times he’d lost his temper and as soon as he got home he’d go
and hammer the appropriate number of nails into the fence.
Soon Matt found the task of hammering the nails in got boring. He didn’t like having to keep
track of all the times he got angry and then go out into the shed, gather the nails and hammer, walk
over to the fence, and pound in a few more nails, particularly if it was cold and raining. Surprisingly,
Matt found that he was getting less and less angry. It was easier, in fact, to control his temper than to
remember the times he hadn’t, then go and hammer another nail in the fence. After a week of not
having to face up to the fence, even on one single occasion, he proudly went and told his dad.
“Good,” said his dad. “I’m pleased to hear it. Now, every day you have withoutlosing your tem-
per, I want you to go and remove one of those nails you hammered in the fence.”
The days went by, and the nails came out one at a time, but somewhere in the task of removing
them, Matt noticed that they were leaving holes. The wood sprung back around some of the holes,
closing them up a little, while others stayed the full size of the nail. Matt became concerned about
the gaps that remained even after he’d removed the nails.
When he told his dad, his dad said, “That’s a bit like what happens when we get angry. Anger
can hurt and sometimes it leaves a wound or a scar that people remember long after the anger has
passed.”
Matt thought about his dad’s words over the next few days. He didn’t like the fact that he’d left
holes in the fence. Every time he walked by he could see the wounds that remained from his actions.
The next weekend he asked his dad for some putty and filled up all the holes in the fence, but he
could still see where they’d been. Matt wanted to fix what he’d done, so he asked his dad if he could
paint the fence next weekend.
“What color would you like to use?” asked his dad. Matt had several ideas. He could paint the
fence all one color, paint each picket a different color, or do a mural over the whole fence. Perhaps
he could have a fence-painting party, inviting his friends around to do some graffiti art. As he con-
sidered it, he discovered there were many things he could do that might change what he had done
to the fence. This, thought Matt, is a lot more fun than hammering in nails.
130 Healing Stories, Teaching Stories