Young carpenter builds memories on blustery fall day
I was in fourth grade when I began to take an interest in building things out of the bits of leftover wood I found in my father’s workshop.
It was a late October day and the sky was spitting icy sheets of rain. My father had built a fire in the old camp stove in his shop.
Smoke belched from it from time to time as the winds shifted outside.
The shop was snug and warm and filled with all sorts of tools—perfect to hone my new-found carpentry skills.
I searched around various stacks of small boards and old signs for some materials to start with. I had no notion of what I was going to build.
I was seeking the right materials that would inspire me to create something cool.
I heaped eight small fir boards on the workbench. I pulled out a two-footer, about a half-inch thick and eight inches wide and locked it into the vice on the end of the bench.
I squeezed the board so tightly in its jaws that the wood squeeked.
I grabbed a ruler and a fat square pencil and drew the letter M, big and bold, on the piece of wood.
My father took a break from skinning a coyote and came over to see what I was doing.
He peered over my shoulder and asked, “What are you makin’ there?”
I looked at him and simply answered, “Somethin’.”
He returned to his task as I pulled an old hand-saw that was hanging on the wall.
It looked as if it hadn’t been used in many years.
It was much too large and unwieldy for me to manipulate but it seemed so lonely just hanging there by itself.
I rested its rusty teeth on the board and drew it across the board several times with very little effect.
All I got for my effort was a few scratches to the surface.
My father and I worked away in the shop for hours.
At the end of the day, I really hadn’t made anything.
I was just happy to have spent time pounding boards and bending nails on one of the many cold and rainy fall afternoons, growing up Adirondack.
Mitch Lee, Adirondack native & storyteller, lives at Big Moose Lake. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com
