Working With Wood
I don’t like to get my hands dirty. I’m not ashamed to say that. It’s the truth; I hate dirty hands, and I hate touching dirty things. A little dirt, a little grease, a little charcoal; I am headed for the soap. Touch anything in public, I am squeezing my Purel. Working around food, I am wearing disposable gloves. Actually, I wear gloves for just about anything; whether it is gloves for weight lifting, gloves for golfing, gloves for batting, gloves for warmth in winter, gloves to wash dishes or wash cars, gloves for just about any reason you can think.
And if I don’t have on gloves, I’ll be at the sink washing my hands. This is just me, and has been for as long as I can remember. OCD? Maybe a little. But, this is a rule of my life. And, there IS an exception to every rule. With me, it is wood.
There is just something about wood. I never have to wash my hands if I am handling wood. Doesn’t matter how dirty or dusty I get; the wood dust, shavings, and scraps never bother me. I love working with wood. I love being around wood.
I love to smell wood if is burning in a fireplace, burning from being scorched by a saw blade, or burning from a design being etched; and I especially love the smell of freshly cut wood. I can tell if I am smelling mahogany, or cedar, white pine, oak, hickory, walnut, or pecan; having learned that skill at age 14 in wood shop, and it is still with me today. I can tell the grain and density of most woods. I’m not that good with bark or leaves, but let me look at the grain, and I’ll recognize most of the popular ones.
Some would say I’m a little slow to have just recognized my love for wood; but it hit me yesterday, maybe it was when I walked into the beam to nearly blacken my eye. Or, maybe it was when the miter saw got hung up on a large unseen knot and jerked my hand to within inches of *decapitation of several fingers. (True story here; not more than 2 minutes earlier I had been prompted in my Spirit to pray for my safety around this beast of a blade. Thank you Lord for your prompting and for your hedge of protection.)
In any event, it finally hit home that this is something I truly love to do. For some, it’s the thrill of killing a 12 point buck, for others it is landing a 4 lb. largemouth bass. For me, I guess my ‘outdoorsy’ excitement comes with wood. I spent all day on the patio modifying trim pieces, modifying posts, and preparing the patio to be painted. 100’s of nails were driven, 100’s of miter saw cuts were measured. It was fun. Exhausting, but truly fun. Just like the ‘old’ days.
I was filthy all day, but only washed my hands a few times, both for the normal circumstances of cleaning up for lunch, and using the bathroom. How did I go all day with my hand washing fetish not kicking in, as my hands were constantly dirty, filthy? I guess when you’re handling something that is not offensive to your system; you can handle as much of it as you want.
*Special note to the blood weary. My Grandpa Willis lost 3 finger digits to blade accidents. My Uncle Hurley lost 3 finger digits to blade accidents. My brother Paul has lost 1 digit. Myself? I want to go to my grave with all my digits still in place . . .
I can trace back to a very young age loving to be around wood. I remember my Dad teaching me when I was maybe 6 or 7 how to remove nails from wood and re-straighten them with a series of carefully placed hammer strokes, making them almost as straight as brand new ones. I can remember relentlessly scavengering the scrape piles in our new neighborhood at age 8 to find wood pieces that could be used to build skate boards and go carts; fashioning quite a few in my day that were masterpieces by my account.
I remember building more tree houses and forts than you can count on both hands. I was constantly building tree houses from age 8 to age 12. Two of my brothers (Ken and Paul), were routinely helping me. We had a good system going too. One would look for and carry wood, one would saw, one would hammer. This was more of a necessity though, as we only had one saw and one hammer, and shockingly, we were good at taking turns with these assigned tasks.
Not that we didn’t have our fights. We were boys after all. Paul nailed me in the forehead with a hammer throw once, requiring stiches of course. I got him back a few years after that, lodging a bamboo pole in his forehead, requiring stiches of course. Ken took an early beginners course in falling (explained more in the next paragraph), as I can remember him losing his balance (or being pushed), and ending up on the ground many times, in one or more of many contorted positions, though never with any broken bones.
Wood is in my DNA. It’s got a long lineage in both sides of the family. Wood got into by brothers Ken and Paul’s veins too, as they both became carpenters, and have been for most of their lives (save a few years they were each in the restaurant business). Paul started off by framing houses, but grew into finish carpentry, and his main bread basket today is finish carpentry on high-end houses that take him and his crews many months of detail work to complete. Ken started off too by framing houses, and was still doing that until he took a nasty spill from a 2nd story scaffolding. Thankfully, he survived, but it ended his wood career, and he is back in the food service industry.
My Uncle Hurley was a master woodsmen; crafting exquisitely beautiful Grandfather clocks as his specialty, plus curio cabinets and desks. No pre-made kits for him, everything was made by hand. He even planed his own wood from rough cut to smooth cut. Man, when that machine was on, you could hear it from .5 mile away. The planer was, and is, the nosiest piece of wood working equipment ever made.
His garage was full of the latest and greatest woodworking tools, and the smells, oh man, I loved to smell his garage. I was invited to help him a few times as a young man craft some pieces with him, but Hurley mainly like to work alone, as I do; as helpers sometimes aren’t very helpful. I did learn a lot from him though. He taught me about clamps, designs with a router, turning a lathe, and tracing a design for the band saw cuts.
My Grandpa Willis was a woodsman; building rocking chairs, stools, benches, and cabinets. My good friend and cousin Art works commercially in the wood business, designing/engineering/estimating/drafting; and, he built his own home, with his own hands; amazing. Art can build anything he wants to, and in one of our past lives, he built a wood porch for us that is probably still standing somewhere today.
Over the years for my daughters, I have not built much; nothing really. My crown jewel to date was their playhouse from 25 years ago, but it was a dandy, complete with window sills, swinging doors, siding, painted, and fully shingled. They got a few good years of enjoyment with it before we moved.
Retirement is a foreign concept to me, 40 years away at least; but I’m going to need a hobby to slow down and enjoy for the next 30 years. Perhaps I see the all-in-one Shop Smith Mark VII in my near future. Priced at $4,655 + tax + handling; which is just the right size for two of my favorite daughters to stuff under their favorite Dad’s Christmas tree . . .
The BIG problem is; I need a 4th car garage to put my wood shop in. Wait, why did I say that? That’s not a problem. I’ll just build one ~ that will be my first project! (Uh oh, Pam better not read the end of this story, as ‘project’ is a dirty word to us nowadays; I love you Babe. Hey girls, thanks so much for that Christmas gift idea J). Do you need the link for purchase . . . ?
