Wood Shop

There is something very satisfying about pounding a nail into wood. This feeling is something very new to me. Just to clarify, I have held a hammer before and I have tacked a few small nails into walls to hang up pictures. But I haven't had a lot of experience driving a nail through wood to put something together. A couple of years ago, I did help my friend Denny, only for a day, work on an extension to his house. Denny also had some master carpenters working with us that day and I was amazed to see the skill these guys had; both intellectual and physical. These guys were true renaissance men. They understood the physics of putting up a structure, their minds calculated math at rapid speed, and they saw flat paged blue prints in three dimension. And when they swung their mighty hammers 16p nails went straight into the wood with one or two strokes. Amazing.

The extent of my building education was in the summer before my 7th grade year at Highlands Intermediate. I took a wood shop class for summer school. The wood shop class followed band class. I'm not being modest when I say this, but I sucked at both classes. I just didn't understand what was going on in band class. It might have been a numbers thing where I was just unable to count the beat in a measure or it might have been that I was too busy staring at the flute section(girls). Needless to say, that summer of band was the end of my musical education. The wood shop class that followed was no better. I actually got kicked out of that class on the first day. I must have been really squirrelly after band class and needing to play because my friend and I just started firing paper wads at each other from across the room. The teacher did not put up with it for a second. Before he even got to know our names he shouted out,"You and you get outta my class!" We left the class that day not knowing if we were going to be allowed to return. We did go back to class the next day and apologized to the teacher for being disruptive. And for the rest of the summer we learned how to make various wooden boxes that we glued together and a sitting stool with real nails in it. My boxes were often crooked and my stool wobbled a lot.

I feel like I'm getting a second chance to create boxes that are straight and stools that stand firm. Yesterday, Jim, Renato and I put up the ply boards on the second floor of the cabin to make the place Bodhi safe. A lot more is at stake here than whether or not I'll pass wood shop. It was very satisfying to know that with each swing of my hammer I was making the place safer for my wife and son. I think I may have pounded in a few more nails into the boards than was necessary. But the sound of hammer hitting nail, the feel of the hammer, and the vibrations in the palm of my hand was just too darn fun.