Wednesday, April 2, 2003
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Wednesday, April 2, 2003 |
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All hands on the deck, or 'Wood I lie to you? By MICHAEL
BOYLAN We built a deck at our house. Well, actually, my father-in-law and brother-in-law built the deck with lots of help from Sabine and minimal help from me. I moved wood, cleaned up the site, held flashlights when it got too dark and fetched beer. Don't get me wrong, though; that was fine with me. Being a gofer at a construction site is more my speed anyway. The problem started when I took wood shop and metal shop in sixth and seventh grade. It was required to take a quarter of shop each year and I hated it. The main reason for hating shop was my fear of being disfigured by the machines. You might be thinking, "Good. It's good to have a healthy fear of the machines. It is exactly that type of thinking that will keep you safe from being disfigured." But you would be wrong. Our metal shop teacher, Mr. Glabicki, was disfigured. He had a metal shop accident, the details of which I cannot recall, but he was missing fingers and the remaining fingers were bent and misshapen. Worst of all, he would thrust it in your face, a constant reminder of what horseplay in the shop could get you. Not to mention the fact that he called nearly everybody a ninny. I mean, I was a ninny, but that it is a harmful thing to call a boy in middle school in front of his peers. Our project was to make wind chimes, and I think mine were probably condemned soon after the project was over. I didn't mind using the ball peen hammer, but I was afraid of all the power tools and their hideous, whining screams. I never even got close to the welding area and I think even Mr. Glabicki was glad of that. The next year's project was to make a candle holder, and mine turned out being a structurally unsound, multi-level ash tray. Come to think of it, several of my ceramic projects in art class ended up being ashtrays as well. The real irony is that neither of my parents smoked. I made so many "ash trays" over my years of craft projects in school and summer camps that every celebrity in the Betty Ford Clinic could have their own personal ash tray if I still had any of them lying around. As for wood shop, it seemed that there were even more nasty, dangerous tools and they all ended with the word "saw." The teacher, and I'm ashamed to admit that I can't remember his name right now, was a nice enough guy and all of the other students really seemed to like him. He had all of his digits, at least as far as I could see. If he did work with his feet after school, that was his business. The fear kept me from progressing in wood shop and was an obstacle in my relationship with the teacher. Nobody else seemed too afraid of the work and they all got along OK with the teacher. The only positive comment I could have received would be "well-behaved in the shop, doesn't horse around." Our first project was to make a sign for our rooms at home with our name on it. Mine looked pretty rough when compared with other signs that had lots of designs and pretty patterns. It was not very welcoming. The second project was to be a wooden sail boat mounted on a piece of wood like a 3-D picture. My project once again was ugly. It looked like a mounted refugee raft with no sails and no possibility of survivors. Thankfully, I never had to take shop again and I never did. Unfortunately, it leaves me in my current predicament of being too nervous around power tools to use them correctly. I can use a drill and I did use a nail gun for a brief period during the deck building, but you'll never see me near those digit-splitting saws that chew through wood and bone and anything else that crosses its path. I am getting better and more useful day by day but it is a slow process. Until then, I'll keep holding the ladders, bringing tools back and forth and making sure the beer is cold. At least I'll know that I won't have to clutch the beer with my mangled claw and that is good enough for me. |
