John,

Its a fine piece.  You honor your father, Vint, the Cardinal and the Workmen.

-jc

"John Leeke, Preservation Consultant" wrote:

> Bent-Nail Ethic
>
> When I was about ten years old, growing up in College View, Nebraska, they
> started building a new Catholic Cathedral just two blocks away from our
> house. I watched the steel and masonry structure rise up into the sky, but
> was more fascinated by a growing pile of junk lumber over in one corner of
> the construction yard. This wood had a brownish color and the boards and
> timbers were thicker than the wood I was used to working with in my dad's
> cabinetmaking shop. My fingers itched to handle these rough boards and three
> of them just happened to turn up in my dad's shop. I planed off the edge of
> one board with my wooden plane. Sssssnick, sssssnick, sssssnick, shavings
> curled off the edge revealing a smooth surface with a deep brown grain that
> shimmered with a reddish glow--not walnut, not mahogany, excitedly I
> thought, this strange wood is something exotic, a rare treasure. Of course,
> my dad noticed the unusual boards right away and wondered, in no uncertain
> terms,  exactly where I got them. I confessed, "Got 'em at the Cathedral.
> Looked like junk." I stammered, trying to excuse my theft. "Alright," he
> admonished, "you're hauling these boards back over there right now, and
> apologizing to The Cardinal." I carefully laid my plane on the bench as
> tears welled up in my eyes. I drug the boards slowly up the hill, the ends
> dragging along behind scruffing up the dirt in the gutter. Trudging,
> trudging along, the boards were a lot  heavier than when I brought them home
> and it struck me that my end was surely near. Dad was right behind me making
> sure I went all the way. Then one of the boards slipped, scraping up my fore
> arm, and hit the pavement with clap. I turned to pick up the board, my eyes
> caught his and burst into tears. Dad knelt down and helped me gathered up
> the boards. His strong hand settled on my shoulder, I glanced up and he
> observed, "This wood is too nice for junk," with a hint of a twinkle in his
> eye. Together we carried those heavy boards, end by end, on up to the
> Cathedral, and right into the Cardinal's office. I remember sweatin' it out
> in there, with my dad and The Cardinal. I can't recall at all what was said,
> but somehow we all walked out of there like we were old friends. Those three
> boards were mine, and I was grinning. The Cardinal walked us out to the
> construction site, introduced us to the foreman, and we walked away from
> there that day with permission to haul away as much of that "junk lumber" as
> we wanted. Looking back now, I see my dad always held us kids responsible
> for our actions, but also provided an escape hatch for us to wiggle through.
>
> Every week a truckload of crates holding big slabs of marble and carved
> statues arrived at the Cathedral site. I came just as often to haul the
> empty crates over to our shop. I made friends with the tradesmen, and they
> showed me how to get more work  done in less time "easy is as easy does." I
> learned how to knock apart a crate with the weight of a sledge hammer, how
> to tuck a little block of wood under the claw of the hammer to ease out a
> nail without breaking the handle, and how to wrench out a long spike with a
> heavy crowbar. One day the foreman told me not to leave any more of my bent
> nails laying around. When I started bending over picking them up, one by
> one, a couple of the masons laughed at me with a joke about "bending over
> for bent nails." It made me mad, but one old carpenter shouted them down,
> reached over into his tool box and pulled out the biggest magnet I ever saw.
> It had a handle and I could walk around with that magnet hanging down and
> the nails would jump right up out of the dust and stick to the magnet. Then
> they called me "Johnny Jump Up" and we all had a laugh. After that they
> always called me "Johnny Jump Up" and I felt like part of the crew. I ask
> the old carpenter what kind of wood the crates were made of. He didn't know
> but the foreman said the crates were from Italy, so it must be some of that
> Italian wood. They always seemed happy to see me coming and let me do my own
>
> work on the crates. One day those same two masons took pity on me dragging
> the boards and timbers home by hand. They showed me how build a lumber dolly
> with an old roller skate. Over the next two years I could often be seen
> trundling my roller skate rig down the hill--a tall stack of boards and
> timbers with a bucket of bent nails balance up on top rattling away.
> That wood was fine stuff. It planed up real nice, never warped or twisted
> and seemed to melt away from the sharp steely edges of my carving tools like
> it was butter. We saved that wood for the finest cabinets and furniture. It
> took shellac and hand-rubbed oil with a depth of finish that you could reach
> right into. We never did learn exactly what kind of wood it was. We just
> called it Italian Crate Wood.
>
> After a year or so all those bent nails from the crates had accumulating
> into quite a pile over in a back corner of the shop. One day Dad said,
> "Clear out all those nails and take them on over to Vint's." Now there were
> two strange things about nails in our shop. We never bought any nails, yet
> we always had plenty. And, since I was a little kid it was always my job to
> take any bent nails over to our neighbor Vint across the road who was
> retired. I would run over to Vint's with a hand full of bent nails, Vint
> would thank me kindly, then head down into his cellar. Strange. My dad
> explained Vint's involvement with nails like this. Vint had just one passion
> and just one pastime. His passion was a never ending war with the squirrels
> who dug holes all across his front lawn. To ease his mind from this struggle
> Vint's pastime was the peaceful occupation of straightening bent nails. It
> was a bad year for squirrels and when I began to arrive with buckets and
> buckets full of bent nails I became Vint's friend for life. My dad advised
> me to stick with Vint for a while and help him out with his nails. So, for
> several weeks that summer I worked with Vint.
>
> That first day Vint gave me a tour of his cellar, which was set up as a
> single purpose workshop. Right in the middle of the floor was a tree stump
> with a short length of railroad rail mounted on it, a hammer laying on the
> rail and a wooden chair beside the stump. Vint had lined all four walls from
> floor to ceiling with bins made of one-gallon olive oil tins tilted on an
> angle. He showed me his system for categorizing all the nails by metal,
> length and type. He had all the usual nails that I knew: common, finish,
> brads and spikes made of plain steel, galvanized and copper.. These took up
> just one wall. The other three walls contained a wonderment of  tenterhooks,
> ringshanks, sprigs, rosehead, cut, etc.., made of aluminum, bronze, wrought
> iron, monel metal, bronze and more.. At lunchtime Vint and I went up stairs,
> grabbed a quick sandwich and headed back down to the cellar. Vint tied a
> leather apron around his waist, sat down, picked up his hammer and a nail
> and began tamping it on the rail. He held that nail up to the light, gave it
> one more tamp and handed it to me, saying, "I guess you know where that goes
> by now," with a nod of his head as a clue he was already starting on the
> next nail. After a while I knew where a few of the nails went and the pace
> picked up, but he was always a little ahead of me. Just for fun he would
> match is tamp, tamp, tamp, with my own tramp, tramp, tramp as I walked
> around and around the cellar. I learned more about the types of nails, where
> they belonged and the pace quickened. Vint had me running around his cellar
> in circles all afternoon. Then, when I would be over in one corner of the
> cellar looking for the tenterhooks, I hear a plink over in the other corner.
> On my next nail I'd hear plink, plink on opposite sides of the cellar. I
> looked at Vint, he grinned and showed me his amazing trick. He was tossing
> the nails into the correct bins from the middle of the cellar. It was the
> end of the day so Vint suggested, "Tomorrow bring your favorite hammer."
> When I showed up the next morning there were two stumps and two chairs in
> the middle of the cellar and Vint was just sliding another section of
> railroad rail out from under the nail bins.
>
> One day we were tamping away on the nails and there was a frantic commotion
> at one of the cellar windows. A squirrel was trapped in the window well.
> Vint got a wild look in his eyes and snarled, "I hate those squirrels," but
> then his eyes melted and he smiled to say, "but, I love my neighbors. So, I
> help out as a I can by giving them nails when ever they need some."
>
> That summer I learned a lot about nails, and a lot about life working with
> Vint and his nails. By August I was back working hard in the shop, making a
> set of furniture out of the Italian wood with my dad. Sometimes after a long
> day I'd be drifting off to sleep in my bed and could hear a faint tink,
> tink, tink. It was Vint, working into the night on his nails. Tink, tink.
> Tink.
>
> After the Cathedral was complete my dad thought it would be nice to thank
> the church for all the hardwood and lessons learned. So, I made a bench for
> the Cardinal out of some of that nice Italian Crate Wood , with carvings at
> each end, all held together with a few of Vint's bent nails.
>
> John Leeke
> April 2002,
> College View, Nebraska
>
> --
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> <http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>