Morning Thoughts: March 11, 2018

Had lunch yesterday with some good friends, most fellow vets of the same age. We don’t think much of the upcoming “Honor the Vets” bash. Too late, much too late for us, and we accept no responsibility for assuaging anyone’s guilt. We’re all fine. Stick you medal where … oh, never mind.

We had fun swapping tales, though. Dining with friends is one of the great leveling exercises of life. In addition to other shared interests, we all have a fondness for woodworking. They are all serious and accomplished, I’m a “wannabe.” They accept me though, and I learn much from them, some of it even useful.

In addition to bringing joy, woodworking helps hone many life-skills. For example, there are mandatory rules.

Rule One: Measure twice, cut once.

Rule Two: Measure twice again before cutting.

Optional but Recommended Rule Three: Measure again. It never hurts.

Other mandates include

Think before you act. Hmm. This might be useful for other endeavors.

Don’t do complicated maneuvers late in the afternoon or before sunrise.

Copious amounts of alcohol are forbidden before or during. Afterwards: it makes anyone’s work look better and major mistakes seem as if they occurred long ago in a woodshop far away.

More and better tools always help, but not always in productive ways. In the procurement process, it sometimes helps to tell a spouse that all your friends have (whatever). Be aware, though, that they teach the “Jump Off The Cliff Rule” at Wife’s School.

If your best and dearest friend tells you something will work, measure anyhow. If doing so appears to hurt their feelings, measure again.

If you create something really nice, send it to a professional for finishing.

Fast spinning pieces of steel will cut your goddam fingers off.

Woodworking is best at making you use language of which your Sainted Mother would not approve.

If you have the skills to be a concert violist, take up scrapbooking, not woodworking, as a hobby.

Always remember that the people who do this on TV can do “re-takes” and you won’t know it. Those smug looks are taught, not earned.

You can trim a piece of wood but you can’t stretch it. (They also teach this at Wife’s School, but in a different context).

Revel in goof-ups. There’s no better way to learn. Well, maybe there is, but woodworkers prefer the hard way.

And, finally, if like our group, you served in some miserable little “f-up” of a war thought up by arms manufacturers and politicians, you’ve been living on borrowed time for fifty years anyway, so screw it all and head for the shop. There’s only so much time left. Use it wisely.

Tell Senator Cotton to “make sawdust, not war.” You need to teach your grandchildren how to create things, not blow them up.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts,
things turn out okay … sort of.