Last Saturday, our daughter Faith and I attended the Woodworking Show in West Springfield, Massachusetts. The show is held at the Big-E fairgrounds, in one of the smaller buildings. The show missed a year, due to Covid and has been struggling to attract vendors and crowds. This year was a little better than last year, but it may take a few years to get back to pre-Covid levels.
Pre-Covid (and a few more hyphenated words) is my Jot today for yesterday’s prompt for Linda G. Hill’s JusJoJan challenge. Sally, from ‘Hot Dogs and Marmalade’ gave us the following prompt:
“Your prompt for JusJoJan January 17th 2023, is ‘hyphenated.’ Use the word ‘hyphenated’ any way you’d like. Enjoy!”
“Pre-Covid” defines an era, a beloved past, a simpler time when we came and went without fear of being infected. Pre-Covid is when we worked in offices, sat in meetings, dined at tables, and attended events like the WoodWorking Show where we would squeeze and bump our way through a crowd. I’m not sure if we are currently post-Covid or living-with-Covid, but it’s not the same as it was.
Faith and I wore masks inside the building. We were in the minority, but we were far from the only ones taking that precaution. We looked at tools, both old and new, and we watched vendors demonstrating their tools. As we have done in the past several years, we spent a lot of time picking our way through the stock of a couple wood suppliers. I was looking for “interesting” hunks of wood. I’ve made bowls, and bookends from pieces of highly figured, damaged, insect infested, and rotted wood. I look at these pieces from all angles and try see if I see something hiding in the wood.
At one end of the piece I bought, I see the potential for an interesting clock. My initial thought was that I would hollow out the kinda-sorta-already-round rotted area and stick a clock in it. Faith suggested that I figure out a way to put a clockwork mechanism in through the back of the rotted area and use the wood surrounding that round rotted area as the face.
My way would be easy. I’m talking drill-a-hole-in-five-minutes easy. Faith’s way is unbelievably difficult. I have to slice a clock body out of the wood. Then I need to slice what will be the back of the clock off. Then, in the area under the back, I need to create a pocket for the movement body. Then I need to push the clock stem through a hole in that rotted area and install the hands. Finally, I need to cover the movement with the back I sliced off, leaving an access panel so I can set the time and change the batteries in the future. Either of the following statements can be my one-liner today. My comment to Faith is first, followed by her reply.
“Thanks for suggesting an approach that will be much more complicated, but which will result in a better-looking clock.”
“You’re welcome. By the way. You’ve been doing that to me all my life.
She’s right. My father used to do that to me when I was a kid. I guess it’s a tradition.
This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. And, given the time of the year, it’s also part of Just-Jot-January. If you have a one-liner, I encourage you to join in on the fun. You can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.
All five of my current books are now available in audio book form thanks to Amazon KDP’s Virtual Voice process. The voice is AI generated, but I can honestly say, it’s pretty darn good. The audio books are reasonably priced (all below $7 US) and, if you already own the Kindle version and want to add an audio version, you can do that for $1.99. There is a five-minute sample on the book page for each book. If you’re interested, click on any of the Dreamer’s Alliance book links below the image or on the link below for my latest book.
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