2014 Holiday Wish List – Terry Chapman

Those of us who write for this Blog crave comments.  We celebrate when one appears and we hold our breath until we see what the reader has to say.  My personal record is the entry I wrote several years ago on The Zombie Apocalypse.  That one got upwards of 160 comments and I was ecstatic, giggling like a girl as they came in.  I don’t know if I will ever match that one.

Highland asks their bloggers to make a wish-list post this time of the year, all designed of course to get you to think about which tools you might want to purchase to add to your collection.

I was looking back over the last few weeks of blogs and the most comments recently went to “The Awesome Responsibility of Being a Woodworking Grandpa”.  I read most of them and there is a common theme.  Everyone remembers the woodworking experiences where someone spent some time in the shop with them.  It didn’t matter what they made, it was the time spent together.  Many people lament the time missed in the workshop with their kids and grandkids and hold out a desperate hope of the kids showing up one day.  Tools passed down through generations are treasured, always with the thought that the old ones are the really good ones.

When I was growing up my Dad had a farm and my brother and I spent many hours with him.  We had quite a hay-baling operation, where Daddy would cut the hay, I would rake it and my brother would run the hay baler.  Then we all hauled the bales to the barn together.  Later we had an egg farm, and picking up and processing eggs by hand several times a day certainly makes for lots of time together.  I suppose my love of woodworking first comes from Daddy’s skill at making slatted wooden bodies for his pickup trucks so he could haul livestock to the markets.  They were made from what I remember as 2-1/2” white oak strips, incredibly strong and bolted together with carriage bolts.  The other thing I remember is that Daddy never had all the tools he needed and sometimes had to borrow tools.  I suppose I was a little gotten off with about that, so now I make sure I have all the tools.  I don’t have to borrow tools but neither do I have any tools handed down from my Father.  I regret that.

My son has no interest in woodworking other than the bowls I make for him to give to the bridal couple when he performs a wedding ceremony.  There are no tools in the shop he wants me to save for him and I hold little hope of him joining me in the shop.  My best hope is apparently going to be some future grandchildren, or some “adopted” children.

So my Wish-List for you and for me for this year is a little different.  I wish for someone to share my skills with.  Someone I can teach to turn bowls and build Windsor chairs.  Someone to spend time with in the shop.  A guy named George summed it up in his comment:  “Recently I made a pretty music box for one of my granddaughters. When I finished it and played it for the first time I cried.”

That’s on my Wish-List for this year.