Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 10:22:26 EST
Dear Galooti,
Although Ixe2x80x99ve been lurking on the list for several months through egroup
s
digests, Ixe2x80x99ve gone live now so I can post an occasional nugget or two,
assuming the old squirrel brain can remember where it put 'em.
But first, the customary introduction:
After 34 years at the same company, I'm headed for retirement in a few
months.xc2 How does May sound?xc2 Damn good to me.xc2 SWMBO (who's already re
tired;
she only made it to 33 years!) and I will be deserting our native NYC (for
most of the year,anyway--we're going to see how it goes) for the farm we've
been fixing up the last two decades and more in Delhi, NY--in the western
Catskills, where the hills are low and rolling and still dotted with
Holsteins.xc2 Jack from Endwell will know just where it is.
In anticipation of the Great Day, we've had the barn shored up and re-roofed
and re-floored and re- a lot of other things; and, in addition to housing the
tiller and tractor (we garden) and the truck (we snowplow a half-mile long
driveway), there's going to be a nice cozy woodshop fixed up over the old
haymow.xc2 About 18 x 24, lots of windows facing south and west, radiant heat
tubing under the floor, good lighting, and even a few spare *l*ctr*ns
available in case a Normitis attack overtakes me.
Well, now, you galoots may be thinking:xc2 "Wahoo!xc2 Here's a guy starting ou
t
with nary a neander tool to his name!xc2 And a goldarn city slicker to boot!"xc
2
Wrong, wrong.xc2 (OK, maybe the boot part.) After all, we've had the farm all
these years, and there's already another shop in the barn next to the new
woodshop, and while SWMBO was furnishing the house from garage sales, I did
just wander over to the tool tables once in a whilexe2x80xa6xc2 Oh, and my job d
id take
me to England quite often, and who could pass up the great Saturday pushcart
fiesta on Portobello Road?xc2 Or Covent Garden's Jubilee Market on Mondays?xc2
Or
Camden Passage, early Wednesday mornings?
So some time I'll tell you about bringing a suitcase full of pigsticker
mortise chisels through the very antsy security at Heathrow airport just as
Desert Storm was getting under wayxe2x80xa6xc2 And I will own up to a YB infill
or three
as well, augmenting the usual pile of arn from New Britain.
Now, skills--that's a different kettle of eels.xc2 I've done some woodworking
classes to the point where I can make a decent dovetail and a half-decent
mortise-and-tenon, and I do get a good euphoric buzz on after a few minutes
of making long, diaphanous shavings with a well-tuned smoother, but when it
comes right down to it there ain't much I've really, well, made.xc2 But we need
more bookcases for the house, and of course there's all those planes and
chisels and saws to house, so I guess I'm going to launch into actual joinery
pretty soon.
One last confession:xc2 While most of my tools are users, there is one thing I
just plain collect.xc2 A few years ago I bought a beat-up old wooden jointer at
a tag sale.xc2 When I got around to cleaning it up (don't wince, fellas,
nothing coarser than 80 grit was used), the toe revealed the maker's mark in
the usual zigzag border: A.INGLIS/DELHI.NYxc2 Well, well,well!xc2 And here I a
m a
local history buff and a wannabe neander--how could I resist?xc2 So now I've
got a few shelves full of Archie Inglis's planes, plus his census data,
copies of his immigration record and deed to his house and his probated will;
my hope is that one of these days it'll make a nice little article for the
EAIA Chronicle.
Oh, and if anyone on the porch is hiding a stash of Inglis planes, e-mail me
and let's talkxe2x80xa6
John Wadsworth
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