Carpentry With Miyer Nelson

The work on the front entry is moving slowly, but moving.  I cobbled together the two sets of stairs last week.  I reused complete the old set of steps up to the porch and reattached the accompanying old railing with minor modifications.  But the steps up to the new concrete landings needed to be done from scratch.  I tried my best to use the old lumber from the demo of the stairs and landings but I ended up cutting new stringers and mostly new treads.  Now the railings are in progress but I need to go to the lumber yard to pick up a few more 2x4s to finish.  I think I can use most of the other scrap wood to make planters and a bench.  When they, and the steps, are completed I will need to scrape off some concrete droppings and some flakey old finish before I can coat everything with sealer.  Probably the additional work of cleaning will negate the savings in lumber but there will be less trash to throw away or to pile up and let rot. 

It is important to me to work like this.  I believe it is not just in my training but my genetic make up to be frugal with material.  It is the result of both nature (the continuity of the genetic material passed down to me from my mother’s side) and nurture (my early experiences working with people who were sensitive to waste in general-and planning projects so that there would be no waste specifically). 

My earliest experiences with tools and wood and materials came at the foot of my grandfather Miyer Nelson.  He seemed like a giant to me when I was five years old but I know now that he was a slight person, probably not much taller than I am now.  He had the same hollow cheeks and bony face as I.  Mostly my memories are vague but there are a few that stand out clearly and they all have to do with tools and working.  I remember his tool box.  It was a small suitcase perhaps 18” x 10” x 10” with a thick leather handle on top of the hinged lid.  Surely the concept of purchasing a purpose-built storage container for tools never occurred to him.  The suitcase was sufficient to carry his small array of tools.  The only tool I can absolutely remember was an ancient hatchet that doubled as a hammer and had a notch in the base of the blade with which to pull nails.  The handle was wood (probably hickory darkened with age) that at its base was as thick as my wrist.  I took it out of the “tool box” and marveled at its heft.  Miyer rewarded my curiosity with a light smack on the hand as he took it away from me, admonishing me for ‘playing with the tools’ and telling me to ‘be careful unless I wanted to get hurt’.   Knowing that this tool was off limits made it very special in my eyes.  I longed to use it.  I had to use it.

Mier took me to the lumber yard.  Lindsley Lumber was the name of the place.  After stopping for a few minutes in the office he and I went out into the yard to pick out the material he needed for the repairs he was doing.  The yard seemed impossibly large and smelled of pine and oak tannin.  There were wooden barrels with rusted metal bands full of nails and screws.  There was a ‘butchers scale’ hanging from a rafter to weigh the nails.  There were units of lumber stacked to the rafters and moldings standing in bins.  I was overwhelmed.  It was a place that I wanted to explore but my grandfather held my hand tightly and pulled me along until he found the material he needed and then he cautioned me not to move while he picked through the pile for just the right boards.  When he was satisfied that he had what he needed he hoisted the boards up on his shoulder and reattached his big hand on mine and we went back to the office to pay.  When the clerk returned my grandfather’s change he included a cherry red lollypop for me. The lollypop was not on a stick.  It was on a white loop of string so that you could put your finger into the loop and suck away.  When that sweet cherry lollypop hit my tongue I knew that lumber yard was my favorite place on earth.

But to return to my training and genetic bent in construction, at home I was ready to build!  I watched, mostly, and handed Miyer the tools as he required.  He never let me actually do any of the work but I watched him carefully and this is what I noted.  He pulled old nails and made piles of them which he took great care to straighten and reuse later.  He put the extras in a coffee can and I saw where he stored them.  He reused small bits of wood and screws.  I know now that his repairs were inexpert and crude but back then they seemed epic.  When he was done for the day I put the tools into the ‘tool box’ and he put it into a closet and I saw where they were kept. 

The first time I took Miyer’s tools to use I lugged the heavy box out into the yard and I took the hatchet out.  I took a nail from his stash in the coffee can, intent on feeling what it was like to hammer a nail into a board.  I hoisted the hatchet up and, on the first swing, hit myself in the forehead with the ax side of the tool.  Bleeding I could not hide the wound and paid for my experimentation with a spanking.  Mom put a band-aid on head and Miyer applied the punishment to my ass.  But even a spanking could not stop me from stealing into the closet and taking that ‘tool box’ out again and again.  Miyer finally gave up and we shared the dull, worn out box of tools from then on.  I learned to hit the nail on the head (instead of hitting myself in the head!) and I became an expert with the hatchet.  I used it to de-husk a coconut in minutes.  I learned to pop the ‘eyes’ of the coconut with the hammer side of the hatchet and a screwdriver, and drain the sweet milk into a glass.  Then I would crack the coconut shell and use a knife to extract the ‘meat’.   I worked with Miyer whenever he had a job.  I became his helper.  I learned to straighten nails.

When we moved from my grandparent’s home into our own house I became my mother’s helper.  She did projects too.  She covered shelves with liners.  She built a triangular table and covered it in cloth.  It sat in the corner behind the curved couch in the living room.  She put peg-board up in the utility room and shelves for the laundry soap and bleach.  We branched out to do some wallpaper.  She let me help.  The same ‘tool box’ that my grandfather had used found it’s way to that house.   The contents were augmented by tools that she must have purchased-trowels and paint brushes and even some new nails and screws.