Benchtalk from Mr.Sawdust

IT’S FALL AGAIN!

It’s that time of year when young people relish the briskness of the air—and the older of us bask in the beauty and the sadness of the turning leaves. A time for contemplation before we move ahead.

Fall is something special for the serious woodworker. Thoughts he walked around with and vacationed with during the summer begin to take shape. Details, somehow, become more clear. He finds he can make decisions. He goes into his shop and sees it in a new way. The clutter must go; a tool needs some extra care; a bench needs scraping. There must be a renewing and a replenishing—because he is somehow renewed and replenished and his shop is HIM! His fingers have a tingle that was not there in July—or August. Or September.

Now it’s October—and the great drawing power of the tool and the wood is demanding that he perform. His time is NOW. All else is something less. And he starts by sweeping out every nook and cranny and he moves about and he thinks and he sweeps and he ends by doing what must always be done first—he quietly and thoughtfully sharpens and hones his chisels and his plane-irons and readies himself for the great experience:

He is about to build something very fine—and he knows what it will be.

~Wallace M. Kunkel -"Mr.Sawdust" (written for ‘Benchtalk’ October ’78)