Out in the Woodshop

(Sorry I haven't had an update in a few days. I've been sick with a plague my son must have brought home from day care. Here's some more anniversary photos to help take back the slack.)

While Mom did all the painting and detailing, my dad was the one who did all the woodworking on projects like haunted dollhouses. Another way to put it would be to say that he did all the dangerous work. Considering himself an expert woodworker, he favored the biggest, most dangerous power tools he could find, which he would outfit with giant rusty bloodstained sawblades with long sharp teeth.

Of course, he didn't do it alone. He needed a helper. That turned out to be me. My dad would push the wood towards the sawblades. My job was to reach around either side of the spinning wheel of death to guide the wood on the other side. "Careful," my Dad would say, "get too close, and that thing will chop off your head."

It was scary helping him like that. I'd always try not to look at the floor, where the severed fingers of previous helpers lay strewn in the sawdust. That just made me nervous.