Wood Shop

Now I thought that I was pretty much an accomplished carpenter in the 8th grade - that is until I took wood shop. We all had to take it while the girls did something like Home Economics or whatever. Our first assignment was to take a block of wood and make it "square" using only hand saws, chisels and planes for cutting; and a framing square for measurements. We quickly learned that making something square was not the easiest thing in the world. Change this angle on this side and you change that angle (or those angles) on the other side(s.) It was really discouraging. I finally did it, but I had the feeling that the shop teacher just got tired of fooling with me.

Once we had the block of wood square, we were allowed to use some of the power tools to complete our "project." Mine was building a rifle rack and I messed with that for the rest of the semester. The other project we could have chosen was a shoeshine box. Thank goodness I didn't do that one! It had "several" pieces of wood more than the 4 pieces used for the rifle rack. I finally finished the rack and stained it dark brown (I think it was supposed to be walnut, but dark brown was about as good as it got.) Then I varnished and shellacked it and managed to get it home on the school bus. In any event, I must have passed the class.

I think that class did more to discourage me from selecting a career in the carpentry/building world than any thing else. Once I discovered I couldn't even square up an 8 inch long 2x4 board and then learning that I didn't have any woodworking skills made me consider teaching as a career. At least if I were teaching I wouldn't actually have to "DO" anything!!

The rifle rack disappeared at the same time as all my childhood mathoms. I left it all in my room at home when I left for the Air Force and never saw it again. Oh well...