[TheForge] Blacksmith YAK

[Jerry Frost]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Husvar" <jhusvar@neo.rr.com>
>
> Geez, Jerry, does that guy travel the country looking for blacksmiths to
> harrass or what? :)
>
> I had an eerily similar experience at a local Settlers' Day celebration
> here in Ohio. Same kind of thing: It's all fake; not a real fire; not
> really hot iron; there are no real blacksmiths any more, it's a lost
> art; nobody knows how real blacksmiths did things; etc, etc.
>

>
> Hmmmm -- maybe we need to post a picture of that guy so everybody can
> keep a lookout for him? :)
>
>

The first time it happened I thought the same thing but I've gotten very
similar comments/explanations/? from different guys so I think it must be
some kind of mental disease or something. I wasn't quite as kind as I made
myself sound, I gave his kid a wink so he'd know his dad really WAS an
idiot.

Over the years we've had: amusing, stupid, ignorant, unbelievable, etc.
things said at demos threads and I've heard some version of almost all of
them. The one I'm really hoping to hear someday was related by someone on
the list who's name has slipped my faulty memory. He was giving a demo for a
group of young kids. Resting his hand on the anvil asked if anybody knew
what it is. One young kid said "a coyote killer."

I'd have to adopt the kid. <sigh>

 One of my memorable demo comments was from an art "Critic". (At the Alaska
state fair I must add) I'd been doing my usual bit for dispelling any notion
of mystic ability, secret knowledge, etc. when this artistically attired gal
wafted into the demo area. She was tall, dressed in flowing earth tones,
bangly jangly jewelry, artistically dancelike appendage movements and
artfully elevated nose, trailing a stable of sycophants, no less than two
carrying ledgers to record her every utterance.

As she breezed through, never quite stopping the ever present dancelike
movement of her limbs she did bless us by halting a moment at the little
steel table I hang my hammer and tong racks from and toss small tools and
finished items. She picked up a leaf hook, the result of my just finished
demo, still warm from the fire and smelling of hot wax and turps and asked,
"Is this old or did someone make it?"

"Uh. . . . I just finished it."

"OH! Magic! It's JUST MAGIC! She gushed as she resumed her barely arrested
journey, trailing madly writing scribes. She did replace the leaf hook on
the table with care so I guess she wasn't quite the snob I thought. Still,
she'd barely cleared my stunned audience when the first snickers broke out.

Others here have heard virtually the same thing I'm sure but Hollywood
couldn't have cast a better caricature.

In truth she drove home my point far better than I'd been able to; No magic,
it's all knowledge and practice.

Geez, I love doing demos.

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

Meadow Lakes, AK.