IF I WERE A CARPENTER

Theoretically I Have Some Mad Woodworking Skillz

I’m just too clumsy to make use of them

My dad was an engineer by profession, but he was also a skilled woodworker. When he was a teenager in the 1920s, he earned money by selling antiques to tourists who visited what was then a bit of a resort town for better-off Bostonians.

The antiques were fake. My father created them by copying furniture he probably saw in his own home and at the homes of friends. He was quite proud of that and never expressed any shame for his duplicity.

He did go on to more honest work, but always built furniture, mirrors, picture frames and the like for family and friends. Many of those hang on our walls today. He remodeled our childhood home, and built at least two other homes by himself. The smell of sawdust was always present in our house.

I learned a lot from him. I learned how to hammer and saw, how to plane, how to use a lathe, a router, and more. I watched him use fiberglass on the hull of a dilapidated boat he bought; that was very new technology in the early 1950s. I learned how to steam wood to make the curved rail for that boat. We used steam again for other projects where curves were needed. I watched him build rigging so that he could erect a barn without other men to help. He did the same thing to put an addition on when we kids were gone and they moved to a smaller home.

I learned about joints and how to build functional drawers when he built a beautiful and clever pine desk for me. The two drawer columns slid through carefully designed joinery in the writing surface. That desk is still somewhere in our family today, though I forget where it finally landed.

He restored the ancient bell works in the church and recreated the crumbled front of the town library. He built wooden walkways through the wetlands for the Audubon land in our town, and docks for the local yacht club where we sailed his boat.

Models were another thing that popped up in his workshop. These were usually done to help him show potential customers what a finished project might look like. If the customer didn’t buy, the model ended up as one of my playthings.

He built a model railroad for me. Truthfully, he built it for both of us. I wish I had more pictures to share of that — it really was incredible.

When my brother-in-law wanted an addition to his house, he hired my then retired father to help him and to teach him. The project included a beautiful spiral staircase, something few carpenters would tackle. My brother-in-law credits all of his woodworking knowledge to what he learned working with my dad.

I’ve left out many, many things.

So, I learned a lot. But though I tried to emulate him, my hands and my brain would not cooperate. I’m clumsy and imprecise. I cannot juggle three dimensions in my head, cannot see what a finished product will look like when the pieces come together. I have difficulty sawing straight or drilling plumb. I lack mechanical skills.

I tried to hang a small, very simple shelf once and ended up paying someone several hundred dollars to repair the damage to the wall and properly hang the shelf.

I regret that. I would love to be able to have even a tenth of the skill my father had. It’s not that I regret my life in the world of computers; I do not. But there is joy and deep satisfaction in crafting wood.

Even if I had the skills, I have neither the space nor the time for any of that now. We moved to a smaller home and much of my day is taken up with chores as my wife is partially disabled. But still, I do have the yearning.

Some other life, perhaps..

By the way, I blame ScienceDuuude and his Woodworkers of the World Unite!!! publication for surfacing those feelings in me!