I'm proud to say that I was a vocational
student, even though the rest of my high school looked down on us and we
were quarantined far from the regular campus. Teachers and school
administrators weren't used to straight A students and the smartest kid
in the class learning to weld and one even suggested to my mom that my
smarts would be wasted by taking agriculture. He suggested I'd make a
"wonderful lawyer." If there is such a thing.
I've
always been a shop rat and taking ag class meant you got to take an
hour of shop every day. I've always enjoyed fixing things in our home,
for neighbors, antique dealers and even museums and to me a perfect day
is spending all day and evening tinkering in my shop. I've collected
thousands of tools used for carpentry, welding, soldering, carving,
leatherworking, engraving, jewelry making, airbrushing, embossing,
tinsmithing, upholstery, blacksmithing, and engine repair. I even have
some dental and orthopedic surgery tools so if you need a tooth pulled
or a bone set, I'm your guy. (If you don't mind anesthesia by one of my
over 100 hammers.)
I've gone through
phases of what I liked to do best. I started out by wielding wrenches
back when cars came straight from the factory with a sick engine or
cranky transmission. When they started putting computers in cars I lost
interest and switched my allegiance to wood carving and woodwork. That
phase lasted until I realized a guy that's overly medicated probably
shouldn't be using a table saw. I'm lucky to have survived that phase
with all my fingers intact. I've always loved to weld and one summer in
the oilfields I was a pipeline welder's assistant. He discouraged my
taking up the profession because he said all welders became cranky old
men. I listened to his advice but became one anyway. A cranky old man,
that is.
Then I found the perfect
hobby: leatherworking. It satisfies two of my biggest urgings, I get to
pound on things and it requires lots of tools. Some of them are wicked
looking things like round knives and head knives and they took a long
time to master, but here's my secret to surviving the learning phase:
Super Glue. It's better than a bandaid for cuts.
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