Popular Woodworking 2000-06 № 115, страница 66

Out of the Woodwork

From Woodpile to Woodshop

Thanks to an awful prank my grandpa played on me, I became a woodworker.

My first experience with woodworking was nearly my last.

As a part of the baby boomer generation and a lower-middle class family, woodworking was done primarily as a necessity rather than a hobby. My father had the tools you'd expect to find in a garage of that era: a couple hand saws, a claw hammer, a block plane, chisels, screwdrivers (one big and one small), brace and bit, assorted wrenches and some pliers.

These were all kept in a wooden caddy that could be carried to the next "repair." No power tools at all. I, however, had no interest in tools or woodworking. I was an all-American teenager: a sports fanatic with raging hormones.

This all changed abruptly one summer day at my grandparents' house. I was staying the weekend with my grandparents while my folks took a getaway vacation to Las Vegas. My grandfather asked me to follow him up to his attic. He showed me a small wooden end table that he said my grandmother absolutely hated. He said the only reason he hadn't burned it up was because my grandmother thought that my grandfather loved it.

He said that actually he hated it too, but he kept it just to needle her since she had put a large scratch in it years ago. He said he had gotten his fun out of it and now he would like me to carry it down to the back yard and use an ax to turn it into kindling. He would give me a dollar for my effort.

Grandpa left for work, and I set off to do my chore. About halfway through my chopping, I heard my grandma scream at me.

"What the hell are you doing!" It seems that my grandpa had set me up, and this end table was actually an antique given to her that my grandpa really hated. Anyway, by the time that my folks heard the story, I was in deep doo-doo.

My grandpa slipped me an extra 10 bucks, but he never told anybody the truth. My dad was really mad. It wasn't good

enough that I apologized. He said I had to replace the table, too! And not only replace it, but make it myself so I could find out how much time was involved.

It took me weeks and weeks to build that table. During that time my dad showed me how to do everything. From basic saw cuts to dovetail joinery, I learned an enormous amount of woodworking skills in what I realize now was a very short period. I can't say I enjoyed it while I was

doing it, because I had to do it. But when I finished it I was as proud of it as anything I had ever done before.

The next year I got to take woodshop in school and have been hooked on woodworking ever since. I've made many things over the years. Some good, some not so good. But none was more satisfying and inspiring as that end table. PW

Fred Atkinson works wood in Carson City, Nevada.