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A lifelong love affair with wood started with a simple tool.

My first pocket knife, I must have been 5 maybe 6 years old, and I needed something to cut. Something to carve. Once I got the blade open on the tiny folder and didn’t cut my own fingers, I found the closest stick. With one end whittled to a sharp point I’d made my first walking stick… or was it a shive? I don’t remember.

A little bigger knife and a little bigger piece of wood allow me to merge the two. The wood took shape as another, larger knife. Out of my own imagination the wood took shape. First it was carving recreations of small everyday objects. Then came electricity. A sharp blade manipulated in short, careful strokes became a power tool. Table saw, router, drill press and a chop saw.

Each had a uniquely shaped blade and a purpose. But all that came later. Start with the dust. My first job was sweeping. I sheepishly asked if it was okay to pull a push broom. When you get into the corner of the shop, you run out of room to push. You have to pull to sweep the dust out. Dad told me it was a push broom. So, maybe I’m doing something wrong.

These days when my work finds me behind a computer and not in a wood shop, I like to say I have a dusty thumb. It’s mostly only funny to me. What I mean, is it’s been a long time since I made my living in a wood shop, so dusty from the lack of use. But I also mean it as a variation on a gardener’s green thumb.

Woodworkers have dusty thumbs.

Now my hands, my thumbs are soft. When I worked with wood everyday and held the power tools needed to build furniture, my hands were calloused. Didn’t think about it at the time but my hands were tougher than wood. The wood did its best to take notch out but my hands would always bounce back. In all fairness, my hands were living and the wood was not.

My father’s wood shop wasn’t just for learning all things wood, there was culture too. Every Thursday, all of the public radio stations we could tune to in Helena, Montana, would play jazz.

There was our standby station, KUFM out of Missoula. Not always as clear, KEMC out of Billings. And the cool station, KGLT out of Bozeman.

For whatever reason, Thursdays all three stations would play jazz. Mostly good stuff. Coltrane, Monk, Brubeck. Rarely would we get stuck with sets on all of the stations that wouldn’t get us in the groove.

It only made sense that the creativity of craftsmanship with wood would be enhanced with the creative beats of a jazz drummer. Thanks Buddy Rich for keeping me loose while I sanded my Thursday afternoon away.