Something to Sit On
Push: Run.
Whomp whomp whomp…The 1964 Powermatic bandsaw spooled up, sounding like an old steam train tackling the grade.
The last time I cut this piece of tulip poplar, I had to borrow an electric chainsaw. The tree grew for years at the edge of Chapman Forest, until it broke off, and the power company sliced it up.
I think I was 22 when I got to it, with frosted hair, big ideas, and always at the ready for a photo op.
“Let’s make table legs out of it! Hey bro, hey, hey, get a picture of me ripping through this wood.”
He did. I squinted. “Doesn’t look that tough.”
“It’s an electric chainsaw, dude. What do you expect?”
“Oh.”
The half-trunks worked, bark and all, holding up a live edge walnut slab I crafted with dad. Much life happened around that table: anxious “meet the family” dinners with lady friends, relaxing chess games, tax prep, recording sessions, guitar building, and enough pasta to fuel a small town. Once a friend thought it would be fun and intellectual to try smoking a pipe indoors while we all sat around to talk philosophy. It lasted about thirty seconds. His wife, the voice of reason, made him take it outside.
You can’t throw that out. Not such lumber, beautiful to begin with, not after it’s been steeped in all of this. So I packed it up and put it on the moving truck.
Other lumber made the cut, too. The rough old Douglas fir boards, lurking in the red shed from the previous owners. The oak flooring. The live edge oak. Pro tip: never help me move.
And there it sat, waiting for a new house. Now I’m in the new house. And it’s time to build something to sit on. I snagged the old Douglas fir board out of the pile, finally ready to use it for something. Negotiations started. The jointing department, the planing department, back to the saw, back to the planer, finally square, the grain yielding into something useful.
The legs of the three bar stools materialized.
A few oak scraps from the bookcase build, rescued from the dusty corners of the shop, were made uniform, precise, smooth.
My hands turned dark walnut, too. The mini-jackhammer sound of the screw gun rattled through the humidity and sawdust, driving the point home.
But the seat…
I left. The answer wasn’t there in the sweltering morning. Time passed. Clouds billowed in the east. Looks like they nuked Richmond.
I wandered back.
Covered in grass clippings and sweat from arguing with the lawn, I eyed the old table legs.
Hmmmm….
The bandsaw rumbled up to speed, rousing itself from slumber.
It’s been a while since the dinky electric chainsaw, and things are working a tad better now. Mostly.
An old tree trunk table leg became the bench. That’s Chapman Forest, and my first life. The legs of the stool are Douglas fir, the people before me. The cross pieces are scrap oak from Long Mountain, the new life.
I wonder what stories this round of cuts and angles will collect.
Come on by for a cup of coffee, and have a seat.
Almost: awaiting final dowels, finishing stain, and poly.