When I wrote my last post and said that I would have another project done in time for this one, clearly I hadn’t checked the due dates. Whoops! So this post will have to be another general discussion of woodworking. I would like to tell you about the way that I got interested in the craft in the first place.
Throughout this blog, I have mentioned that I learned most of my woodworking skills from my dad. He’s not a professional woodworker; he’s a maintenance 
man. But every year for Christmas since my sisters and I were born, he has always built each one of us something out of wood. The wisteria snake walking stick that I showed you last time was one of those. We never really are sure how he ever finishes them all in time, but somehow he always does. Even more than the woodworking, he loves to worry that it’s going to go horribly wrong. I remember one day last winter when he came upstairs from the shop and asked me very matter-of-factly, “Do you care if there’s a gigantic hole in your project?” (There was not.)
Some of his projects follow a pattern. Every time another niece or nephew is born, he builds them a rattle with one of that year’s pennies in either end. When my sisters and I each went to kindergarten, he built each of us a desk that year. Most years, though, his ideas are all over the place. He’s done a toy Noah’s Ark with lots of little animals inside, a blanket ladder, two marble machines, floor-to-ceiling shelves, and so many more that we’ve pretty much lost track.
The one with the most interesting backstory was probably the hope chest he built for my older sister. We take care of a house for our neighbors while they live in Florida during the winter. In 2012, an enormous hickory tree came down in their yard in Hurricane Sandy. Hickory wood is extremely difficult to work, but it’s tough as nails and will last until the end of time. That’s what a hurricane can turn into.
Seeing the passion and creativity my dad puts into these projects shows a whole other side of his personality. He’s usually very quiet and reserved; he almost never listens to music or starts conversations. But the tremendous amount of work he invests in his woodworking shows that he is a talented artist, just not in the conventional sense.
Of course, I don’t have a favorite project of his, but I wanted to show off this one. It’s a neckerchief slide that he made in 2015 and I had to promise I wouldn’t wear until I became an Eagle Scout two years later. It’s an incredible carving, and I just couldn’t not show it here.
