[TheForge] Re: Branding Irons? Professional witness?

[Mike Spencer]

At the risk of being a boring old fart, I'll recount a branding iron
yarn I suspect I've posted before.

Back when I was just learning, Little Raymond, [1] a neighbor
fisherman, came to me and asked for a branding iron to brand his three
initials into wooden lobster traps.  I said sure, I'd do that, but
with barely a clue of how I was going to go about it.

Took me all day.  I chiseled the mirror-image letters into the ends of
3/4" square, then bound them together and made a pretty handle.  When
he came to get it I sheepishly told him it was $25 -- $3/ hour was
okay wages then.  He agreed but said he didn't have any where
near that much in his pocket and he'd pay me later.  Well, there I was
in a shack in the woods and I needed good neighbors more than a rep for
hard nosed biz so I said sure, do that.

Ten years later, at 6:00 in the morning, he drives into my yard, says
do I remember that branding iron and would I take some lobster to
settle up?  Oh, hey, yeah, I would do that very thing!!  So he fetches
a cardboard carton from the pickup, hands it to me and drives off.
There I am with $100 worth (dockside price) of live lobsters.

I long wished he'd lose the damn thing overboard and come back for
another but I guess he's retired now and wooden traps are pretty much
a thing of the past.



- Mike


[1] Little Raymond, 6 foot plus and built like Longfellow's
    blacksmith, was so-called to distinguish him from Big Raymond,
    five foot six, who would have had to go through doors sideways if
    had had a sideways.

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^