[TheForge] Re: Alldays and Inions [yarnin']

Sat Jun 8 13:11:00 2002

Thanks for the yarn Mike.

I love this kind of local character/tool/machine history tale. There's so
much more to tools and machinery than simple utility. Especially old
blacksmithing and others; tools have lives past, present and hopefully
future. Like a family tree, tools and machines have families, relatives,
evolutions and extinction events. Without humans of course none would exist
so the interactions between the humans and their machines is almost as
important as their utility.

Our tools and machines are extensions of ourselves and thus hold a piece of
our souls. Losing a tool or machine's story doesn't reduce it's utility but
it does diminish it's soul a bit and consequently our own.

Like people some tools and machines don't seem to have much of a soul,
screwdrivers for instance. I heard recently just one tool company sells more
than 30,000,000 screwdrivers every year. Thirty million. Definately a mayfly
in the human tool kit, without a lot of soul. Of course there are
exceptions, I have one such.

About 28-29 years ago I was working in a service station and a customer came
in needing gas but dead broke. What he had though was an OLD screwdriver he
offered to trade for a couple bucks worth of gas. Being of soft heart I
agreed and put $5 worth in his tank. He then told me the story of the
screwdriver.

As a kid he kept getting into his grandfather's tools and losing them. (I
can still hear my father griping <grin>) Well, his grandfather banished him
from the tools for his misdeeds but let the kid "buy" the use of his tools
by bartering work. The screwdriver was the first tool the kid earned the
right to use. His grandfather willed all his tools to him when he passed on.
The screwdriver was all he had left, materially, of his grandfather's legacy
to him. After hearing this tale I told him the $5 was a loan and I was only
going to hold his screwdriver till he came back for it. (Okay, so I'm a
sentimental guy.)

True or not it was a good story and I've added to it some. Of every
screwdriver I've ever owned and lost, this is the only one I can lay my
hands on without fail. It has soul and thus life beyond it's utility.

Well well now, didn't that just turn into a ramble. <grin>

Frosty
------------------------
If it ain't forged
it ain't real.
Wrought iron is.
The FrostWorks

Meadow Lakes, AK.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Spencer" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, June 07, 2002 5:35 PM
Subject: [TheForge] Re: Alldays and Inions [yarnin']

>
> > Tell us about your Alldays and Onions Mike.
> > Sounds interesting.
> > Steve Howell
>
> Well, Steve, that what it mostly is so  far: interesting. :-)
>
> Yarnin' follows:
>
>
> ---
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada
>
> [email protected]
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
>