To be good at anything, you first have to be willing to be bad.
No one who ever tried anything new, who ever walked out onto a dance floor or an athletic field, would dispute that. Proficiency is hard won, and you have to step on a lot of toes and muff a lot of easy catches to get there. Want to bake well? First you have to bake poorly.
I know that. But knowing a truth, intellectually, and actually experiencing it are very different, just as writing "hitting your thumb with a hammer hurts" is not anywhere close to extending your digit and bringing down a claw hammer on it, hard.
The truth of just how badly being really bad at something hurts dawned on me while standing at my workbench at the Chicago School of Woodworking, 5680 N. Northwest Highway, a few weeks ago, contemplating my first attempt to make a dovetail joint.
How did I get here?
Paternal love makes a person do many strange and expensive things. It caused me to quit a city I love and move to an anodyne suburb, enduring a quarter-century of reader ridicule and lousy Thai food. It prompted me to spend thousands of dollars on tennis lessons, college tuition, and more recently, wedding cakes. I thought I was pretty much done with that period of life, when my younger son asked if I wanted to take a woodworking class together.
"Sure!" I said, despite smelling a trap. Nine weeks of 101 Introduction to Woodworking cost $495; I assumed I'd be tasked with making the arrangements and then could later dun him for his share, or more likely, not. My parents inspired me to always be open-handed and generous with my children, though ... choosing my words carefully ... not by direct example.
Then the amazing part happened. He signed up for — and paid — for the class. I did the same.
We began in mid-October — with seven others, heavy on the legal and computer professions. "I spend all my days looking at screens," said a cybersecurity expert, when we went around explaining why we were there.
We identified types of wood and joints, and our teacher said something prophetic.
"You're learning to cut things by hand," she said. "A lot of times it isn't going to look great."
Got that right. We began working on picture frames. We busied ourselves at our tasks. My son and I didn't talk much. He has been woodworking as a hobby for a few years — he made a lovely coffee table for his apartment — and were I of a conspiratorial bent, I'd suspect that after a lifetime of me forcing him to learn skills that I was already proficient at — reading and swimming and such — he was now returning the favor, as payback.
No one who ever tried anything new, who ever walked out onto a dance floor or an athletic field, would dispute that. Proficiency is hard won, and you have to step on a lot of toes and muff a lot of easy catches to get there. Want to bake well? First you have to bake poorly.
I know that. But knowing a truth, intellectually, and actually experiencing it are very different, just as writing "hitting your thumb with a hammer hurts" is not anywhere close to extending your digit and bringing down a claw hammer on it, hard.
The truth of just how badly being really bad at something hurts dawned on me while standing at my workbench at the Chicago School of Woodworking, 5680 N. Northwest Highway, a few weeks ago, contemplating my first attempt to make a dovetail joint.
How did I get here?
Paternal love makes a person do many strange and expensive things. It caused me to quit a city I love and move to an anodyne suburb, enduring a quarter-century of reader ridicule and lousy Thai food. It prompted me to spend thousands of dollars on tennis lessons, college tuition, and more recently, wedding cakes. I thought I was pretty much done with that period of life, when my younger son asked if I wanted to take a woodworking class together.
"Sure!" I said, despite smelling a trap. Nine weeks of 101 Introduction to Woodworking cost $495; I assumed I'd be tasked with making the arrangements and then could later dun him for his share, or more likely, not. My parents inspired me to always be open-handed and generous with my children, though ... choosing my words carefully ... not by direct example.
Then the amazing part happened. He signed up for — and paid — for the class. I did the same.
We began in mid-October — with seven others, heavy on the legal and computer professions. "I spend all my days looking at screens," said a cybersecurity expert, when we went around explaining why we were there.
We identified types of wood and joints, and our teacher said something prophetic.
"You're learning to cut things by hand," she said. "A lot of times it isn't going to look great."
Got that right. We began working on picture frames. We busied ourselves at our tasks. My son and I didn't talk much. He has been woodworking as a hobby for a few years — he made a lovely coffee table for his apartment — and were I of a conspiratorial bent, I'd suspect that after a lifetime of me forcing him to learn skills that I was already proficient at — reading and swimming and such — he was now returning the favor, as payback.
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I took a similar class some 40 years ago. woodworking with hand tools is such a guilty pleasure. but once you've learned the basics moving on to modern power tools is much easier.
ReplyDeleteafter a lifetime of building furniture I still do not consider myself a master but ive made a good living. my hand tools sit on a bench in the corner of the shop rarely used a cabinet hangs on the wall above, constructed with the first dovetail joints I ever made .. once depository for my planes and chisels , converted to router bit storage long ago.
I hope you enjoy this time with your son and remember. never let you fingers leave your hands!
I got a DeWalt chop saw when I built the boy's fort 20 years ago, and instilled a rule. Before I touch the handle with one hand I always look to see where the other is. Still got all ten.
DeleteBroken guide on the joiner, short on time, a brief moment of inattention, left index finger flies to the other side of the room. Even a safety nut like me can find the combination of variables to lose a finger. You can't comprehend how important that silly finger is - until you don't have it anymore. Have fun, be safe - never get in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteOh wow! What fun! I took marquetry there with Dr. Betsy Pepper, yes, her real name. It was the hardest thing I ever tried to do until I tried learning bobbin lace, then took metal casting which was not only hard, but dangerous. Bought a piano in '97 and still suck at that. Being bad at stuff is humbling, and now I can appreciate all the beautiful craftsmanship and artistry in my midst. It makes the things I can do well even more enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteStill recall trying to make a bowl in woodshop during junior high, sixty-plus years ago, and clearly remember the deep frustration when I chiseled out too much wood, and it broke through. Happened several times. Barely passed the course.
ReplyDeleteInherited all of my father's hand tools. Many of them are now a century old, and were passed down to him by HIS father, who was a tailor, a woodworker, a carpenter, and a shoemaker at various times in his life. And my father, despite being a pencil-pusher (a CPA), was also quite good with his hands. Probably learned from his own father, or in the Chicago public schools.
Alas, being good with one's hands was not something that was passed on down to me. Use those the tools occasionally, but mostly they just hang on a pegboard, down in the basement, on the wall above my small workbench. There, they gather dust, and look pretty.
My dad had an entire woodworking shop in his basement. Over the years, he made me a wooden salad bowl, a smaller trinket bowl, a wooden and glass candle box, a CD cabinet, and a (small) wooden moose head that hangs above an archway in my dining room. My dad wasn't big on expressing his love to his kids, and he certainly wasn't demonstrative. He showed his love by making stuff for his children, fixing stuff, and doing home improvement projects for us. I have always cherished my handmade, wooden gifts. I love that you are taking a woodworking class with your son.
ReplyDeleteEnvy anyone with the mind and eye and fine motor skills. Girls were not allowed to take shop in my day, strictly home economics, the 3Cs- Cooking, cleaning, childcare with sewing thrown in for those of us deemed fidgets. The progressive teacher instructed us makeup and comportment aka learning to walk & sit upright with a book on our head.
ReplyDeleteIt's despairing how few young people are interested in trade skills. For all their embracing of dystopian fantasies, they fail to realize the gun is at best a temporary life saver that is not going to protect them from the elements or make their hovels more comfortable.
This is way off-topic and should probably be a "letter to the editor," but I'd rather complain to our gracious host and the genial crew of regulars visiting EGD.
ReplyDeleteFlipping through the Sun-Times today, I came upon a nondescript article about the "CTA holiday train and bus plans" on Page 11, with a nice photo of the holiday train making its way down Wabash at night, festively lit up. Anyone who's walked north on Wabash or even crossed it and looked north, knows about a certain building which is included in the photo, completely ruining the whole vista. (Uh, the building prominently includes a 5-letter sign spelling out what amounts to a 4-letter profanity, at this point, also lit up. Hint: It occupies the space where the Sun-Times barge building itself previously stood.)
I just can't believe that, especially right now, a different photo was not selected. I doubt that I'm the only S-T reader offended by the choice, though I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated by Fox News viewers.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/transportation/2024/11/19/cta-holiday-train-bus-schedules-announced
Huh. Yeah. Well. Look at that. I can't say you're not 100 percent correct. My only guess is that, in the tumble to put out a daily newspaper, whoever grabbed that photo didn't consider the background. Lucky it wasn't someone taking a piss, though that might be preferable. As an official representative of the Sun-Times, let me offer apologies. Unless ... this represents a new direction ... unless, like so many in the mainstream media, we are now cimbing aboard .... THE TRUMP TRAIN!!! Choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo, choo-choo...
DeleteThanks very much for that witty reply, NS. It was certainly more satisfying and entertaining than if I'd contacted the paper. I thought of The _____ Train, but couldn't bring myself to mention it in reference to that cute holiday choo-choo. LOL.
DeleteI flat out hate being on Wacker Drive & seeing that atrocity, but being at Lake & Wabash is even worse. it just stares you in the face & every time I see it, I want to vomit.
DeleteThe sole saving grace is that because of that absurd egomaniacal sign, the first 16 floors of the building that he owns, remain empty, produce zero income, but he still has to pay Cook County real estate taxes on them, because no wants to be in that building with his utterly obscene name on it!
I was fortunate enough to take a series of woodworking classes 20 years ago from the late Bauhaus designer Berthold Schwaiger. Like you, I started with hand tools and produced a quite hideous wonky candle holder. But in the second class did a nice, sturdy bench, and in the third made a rather nice (if I do say so myself) sleek telephone table that still classes up in my kitchen. I love the smell of sawdust as it reminds me of my dad's basement workshop. He'd apprenticed as a cabinetmaker as a teen and could build anything.
ReplyDeleteBerthold Schwaiger was a true German master craftsman and I am still astonished at his incredible joinery work. I encourage you to look up his award-winning chair and exttraordinary Fibonacci Cabinet for inspiration. https://lf.org/bhai2000/