How Bob Became The Empreror?s Turner
Chapter Two
The impending sale of the house Bob had been renting for the last four years, the formative period of his woodturning life. wreaked havoc with his turning time. Though he?d packed up most of the shop, he?d put off boxing up his little JET mini and ?a few turning things? (three gouges, a couple of skews, a scraper or two, just one chuck - with three of the jaw sets, one live center and a few sheets of sandpaper as well as one small bottle of his favorite finish). He HAD to turn - at least for an hour or two each day - or he?d go into turning withdrawl. He began having nightmares of being chained to a desk in a cubicle in some windowless office building - doing ACCOUNTING.
The symptoms got worse. He?d stopped sneezing and his cough was practically gone. The sunlight that penetrated his now clean for the first time in years glasses gave him a headache. The word ?sweep? now brought to mind a vacuum cleaner! He found himself sitting in a semi-stupor in front of the TV - ?watching? The O?Rieley Factor! He really missed the smell of Padouk, the gleam of a burnished surface on rosewood. It?d gotten so bad that he barely noticed the sound of a chainsaw in his neighborhood. While driving to or from the new place he was going to be renting he drove right by the piles of logettes on the side of the road, not even slowing down to have a quick look. It was horrible - and the guilt feelings of all the wood he was ignoring gnawed at his very soul.
?I?m losing it!? he?d think to himself. He was certain that when he did get set up to turn again - for real, that the effortless control he?d had with The Skew would be gone, replaced by nasty catches and the evil Spiral Cut. He?d actually shuddered when he even thought about chucking up a big rough and flipping on The Switch. The thought of picking up his Ellsworth ground bowl gouge sent chills up his spine - an INSIDE CATCH - oh the horrors.
Then there were all the roughed bowls that had been resting on their shelves. What would happen when they were disturbed - moved from their comfortable and familiar environment. Surely most of them would crack and warp beyond recovering - or just explode - in response to his sudden uprooting them from the only home they?d known. Years of work - and patience - gone in a mere few days - weeks at the most. The promising spalted piece, the claro walnut vase, the once in a lifetime persian walnut - with its blue and red and purple colors and its surprising heft and luster - they and all their bretheren - practically his children - all now at risk.
He cursed the name of Daryl Finsterdorten - the greedy bastard who?d destroyed his life with but a single call to a real estate agent.
The promotion to an ?inside job? during this traumatic point in his life didn?t help either. His new co-workers knew nothing of his addiction and he?d overheard them talking about him. ?Barb, have you noticed the terminal case of dandruff the new guy has? My word, doesn?t he own a mirror! If he?s not going to deal with his dandruff problem he could at least switch from dark to lighter suits.?. Not being able to distinguish shit from Shinola was bad enough - but to mistake Zircote sawdust for dandruff . . .
The bright spot in all this was the place he found to rent. It was a little one bedroom place only a couple of miles, as the crow flies - 14 miles actual driving distance, from his former residence. AND, for some totally unexplained reason, it had a three, count ?em three, car garage
- along with - 220V.
Maybe, just maybe, that dim light at the end of the dark dank depressing tunnel was, in fact, a ray of hope - instead of the expected on coming train.
THE MOVE was a mini-ordeal. He bird dogged The Moving Crew, more like a combination of pit bull and mother hen, than a retriever. He?d torn down his equiptment and built crates and boxes for everything - carefully numbering the box and making an Excel spreadsheet of each box?s content. He?d stuck big day-glo orance ?THIS SIDE UP? and ?FRAGILE - Handle With Care? stickers on key crates and boxes and he DIRECTED the move, always hovering close as things were loaded on The Truck. Just to stay on the good side of the moving crew, he?d made plenty of sandwiches for The Movers, along with chips and both sodas as well as beer - ice cold of course. He made a point of using the little spanish he knew - por favor, gracias, no mata lo - AND the first names of each of the movers. The rolling ?r? in Eduardo was a problem - but by the third try he?d got it down.
In part, because of his going the extra mile for the moving crew, and in part perhaps just due to luck, THE MOVE went like clockwork. The scaled drawing of what went were at the new place didn?t hurt either. The 40 hours he?d spent coming up with his Perfect Shop Floor Plan contributed significantly to the success of THE MOVE.
There was hope.
When he turned off his bedside light that night he felt a just a hint of optimism as he drifted off to sleep. Maybe this move was a good thing - dispite the trauma and life disruption it?d caused. Despite dreaming about setting up THE SHOP all night, he awoke rested and energized.
The people at work were certain he was doing cocaine, or perhaps Crack. Bob returned a New Man - optimistic, outgoing, friendly and was heard to whistle what might be Zippity Dodah, Zippity Yay. The older co-workers, knowing Bob was an older batchelor, thought he?d merely gotten layed over the weekend. Some thought he was gay and about to Come Out - Bob was, afterall, a bit ?odd?.
Each work day practically flew by and Bob would get home, grab a bite to eat and head for his SHOP. For about a week, every evening was like Christmas Morning. Each box and crate he opened was a source of pure joy and delight. The reunions with old and dear friends warmed his heart and rediscovering long lost Stuff might cause him to clap his hands and almost dance with joy.
His neighbors began to think that The New Guy might be one of those Canyon People - the folks who got too old to live in a commune back in the hills - or worse yet - one of them Hairy Kirshner nut cases. (Why do they shave their heads and then use Hairy as a first name? It?s weird I tell you.)
Because of all his planning, each thing that came out of a box or crate had a predetermined home - the home address of each one was as familiar to Bob as the palm of his hand (no snide remarks please). Being methodical sure helped - putting together the shelves, drawer units and cabinets and placing them FIRST paid off big time.
Each night that week Bob visualized where each thing was - and had even given some of his tools and things individual names - as he fell into a restful sleep. Surely The Wood Gods (and just maybe (whispering) The Cabal were smiling on him. Everything was right with the world. Things were going Just So.
In no time at all, almost effortlessly, (ok so there were a few pulled muscled, a stubbed toe and some splinters that festered) THE SHOP rose like a pheonix from the ashes of crisis. The extra ?day-lite? fluorescents he?d put up shown on his cleaned up, lubricated, waxed and polished lathes and their host of accessories. The hours he?d spent finally regrinding his dinged up and almost forgotten turning gouges and chisels also reintroduced him to these old but slightly abused and nearly abandonded friends. While polishing and honing them to a mirror finish and a surgical edge they talked of their first meetings, their shared first contact with a spinning piece of wood. They could almost hear the whisping sound of shavings streaming from The Edge, the burnished wood?s shine as it became visible as the polished bevel left them.
Surprisingly - NONE of his roughed pieces cracked, split, deformed or committed suicide. Hell, some of the pieces that had shrunk and deformed had returned to nearly perfect roundness.
For the next few months, every waking moment he wasn?t AT WORK was spent gloriously turning wood - no thought of Money Makers or income Generators, just turning - for the fun of it. Really nice shapes began to appear, as if by magic. In many cases, the wood determined what happened next. Rather than imposing his ideas on the wood - to MAKE it be the thing he?d conceived of that he though would SELL - he followed the wood and his gouges, he merely along for the ride - a witness and partial participant in a process that has been around since humans started making things because they felt a need to create. It was that part of his brain just above the brain stem that guided him - a subliminal drive that rewarded him with releases of chemicals that made morphin induced visions seem like child?s play. Begin turning and fall into The Zone - zen?s ?Suchness? - the place where time and space disappear. Bob was sure that at any moment, Rod Serling would appear and say ?This is Bob. In a moment, Bob will enter - The TWILIGHT ZONE.?
Though his bank account was twindling, Bob was beginning to feel happy and content. The bills which would stack up over the next year would change all that. But for now Bob was happy, really and truly happy - and THAT worried him.