When I was 15, I learned the value of a plan.

We had just moved to Marin Country. We lived in an oblong-shaped house, which design included a long narrow hallway along one side and the back of our home. My brother Andy was 7 at the time, and into building of all sorts. He was adept with Lego, the erector set, even the pieces of the old girder-and-panel skyscraper kit, but what he then liked to use, what worked best in that long hallway, were traditional unvarnished wooden blocks.

We had a lot of the oblongs and squares and pillars and even the little half-circles, but we were down to just one arch-shaped piece. That’s what Andy brought to me.

“Can you write CONSTRUCTION on this for me? Please?”

I would have done it even without the magic word. I was the writer in the family, considered artistic too, and I was proud of my printing. I put down my book and took the block and Sharpie in my hands.

Eagerly I uncapped that marker. Boldly I penned the letters: C … O … N … S … T … U … C … T … I … O … N.  Proudly I handed the block back to Andy, accepted his thanks, and watched him return to his building site.

It wasn’t till at least an hour later that I looked at the sign. Andy had mounted the arch above the entrance to a partial perimeter. He was rrrrrrr-ing his trucks through the gateway when I saw that something looked amiss in my word.

I looked some more.

I saw it. Or didn’t see what I should have seen.

There was no “R.” I hadn’t printed CONSTRUCTION. The word on the arch block was CONSTUCTION.

There’s no removing what a Sharpie hath writ. And there’s never a graceful way to insert an omitted letter.