After the exceptional response to yesterday’s reprint of the article on Charlie Kested, we phoned Mr. Kested this morning to find out what he has been working on more recently.
He said the Gettysburg Address has been taking up most of his woodworking time in recent months: “I have all the words cut out and that’s the extent of it so far.” He plans to eventually finish that project in his shop garage, working with the same scroll saw he used to create the Declaration of Independence. Unfortunately he doesn’t have pictures of the Gettysburg address – he declared there was “nothing worth taking a picture of yet.”
We imagine that when it is complete, it will be yet another sight to behold. Kested said he keeps the Declaration in his house, and looks at it every day. Perhaps it inspires the Navy veteran as much as he inspires the rest of us.
The original article in this series first appeared on July 4, 2010 in The Leader-Herald, a newspaper in Gloversville, New York.