John Leeke's Historic HomeWorks™
207 773-2306 26 Higgins St. Portland, ME 04103
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John Leeke's Historic HomeWorks™ |
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207 773-2306 26 Higgins St. Portland, ME 04103 |
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Hey, how've you been? Come on up and take a load off. The wicker chair's a little creaky, but it's all right. How 'bout some ice tea, take that sweet? Or unsweet.
You know, so often my neighbors, co-workers and interns comment on having the best time out here on the front porch, catching a quick lunch with the hot sun filtering through the crown of the silver maple. Or a leisurely supper, then lingering past twilight, chatting up the fireflies, or delving the evening's depth with stories, thoughtful discussion and quiet reflection. The perfect evening air, not so chilly or warm that you can even feel it, air just barely floating by. Our best words and thoughts drifting off the porch and away on the dark mid-night air, gone for good. Day is done. See ya in the morning.
Well, we had this bright idea. Now, when we think of it, right around dusk, we roll out about 20 yards of tobacco netting, from the edge of the porch right out across the lawn. Then we tell our stories all evening. First thing in the morning we get ourselves out there, roll up the netting, quick like, and take it out back to the breezeway. One of us holds the roll up by one end over a bushel basket and the others beat it silly with garden stakes. And all our words from the night before fall out into the basket. We sift out the best words and stories with an old window screen, scoop up a good measure into a blue Mason canning jar, bring it up to the office and pour all those little words into the tiny cracks between the keys of the computer keyboard.
So, now we can share some of our stories with you. Are these stories true? Mostly.
Suzanne writes in:
" Hi, Enjoy your stories. Where can I purchase large rolls of tobacco netting?"
I get this question every year, right around the first of June, so I spose you want to keep the robins out a yur strawberry patch.
I guess that proves there's still a call for tobacco netting, surprisin some outfit or another hasn't picked up on the market. I guess now-a-days large rolls
a tobacco netting are a thing of the past, like fedoras and suspenders. I'd ask my dad, he was born a
century ago and knew where to git anything, but he pass away back in the '80s. I guess I'll have to write a story about how to git you soma that tobacco netting. If you git some in the meantime let me know, and you can be in the story.
(bring me over a quart a them strawberries, and I'll show you the secret google search that reveals all wonderful sources of scarce materials that are still needed in this world, no guarantee, but when yur desparate against them birds anythings worth the chance, sunday afternoon would be good since I've still got some rubarb out back a the barn that hasn't bolted, and yur strawberries would be real comfortable mixed up in the last rubarb pie of the spring season, be good for supper, I'm starvin, hurry
over, who knows we might find some tobacco netting up in the loft)
John
As a little kid out in Nebraska, maybe when I was in third grade, they called me "Johnny Farmer" because I liked to plant seeds. In September we would go to the state fair on the last day. I’d make friends with the farm kids and we’d help their fathers as they took down the crop exhibits. If I asked, they’d give me a few of the long yellow ears of seed corn. All winter long I had half-a-bushel of the ears of corn rolling around under my bed. About January, I'd get my scissors and cut a 3" strip off the edge of the blotter on my mom's desk. (Don't tell her I did that!) Then I’d reach under my bed and sweep up several kernels of corn, and fold them up in the strip of blotter; folding one inch up all along the bottom, one-third over from the left, one-third over from the right. If I asked my older sister real nice she would get me some wax-paper from the kitchen and I’d wrap that around the blotter making a neat little packet, just the size of my shirt pocket and sort of water-proof. I’d sprinkle just a little water in the top of the packet every morning, right after I brushed my teeth. After a week or so I'd get a nice little crop of green corn sprouting up out of my pocket. It looked real nice, growing up to the collar of the red flannel shirt I got for Christmas.
Johnny Farmer
1957, Lancaster Co., Nebraska
Feel free to e-mail your comments on this story, or tell one of your own. Stop in any time you see us out here on the porch, and catch another story.
Feel free to e-mail your comments on this story, or tell one of your own. Stop in any time you see us out here on the porch, and catch another story.
Comments from friends:
"Boy, you've been making lots of vids. I remember you saying way back that you weren't a videoblogger. You must have caught the bug. This is great. I so enjoyed this. You made my mouth water showing me that toast, butter, and fruit. I've never seen someone make toast by a real fire. That was cool. We do smores and hot-dogs out here by campfires all the time. Oh now I'm hungry for sure. Thanks. :) Merry Christmas. Thanks for sharing all that neat stuff"--a friend in upper New York State
Fresh Peas from the Garden
The Carpenter and The Columns
I erected two Tuscan Columns today.
I rest at day’s end, well connected.
--John Leeke, American Preservationeer
Portland, Maine, USA, June, 2005
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My buddy, Bill Dalbec, builds his house of spruce and nails--it becomes a home.
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Notice how solid these porch floor boards are?
Recently I had a student intern to help
me do some porch repairs. As we got started it quickly became
apparent that we would have to rebuild the whole deck structure.
Ordinarily I might have just proceeded with the work, but since
the intern was right there keeping track of everything I thought
I'd better stick to the letter of the law and apply for a permit.
So, we went down to city hall to fill out the forms at the building codes
enforcement office. We were just over the limit which required
drawings. Well I did not want any further delays, so I stood
right there at the counter and drew out a set of plans and
details free hand, which took about an hour. I surprised
myself at how well they came out. The clerk was pleased and
smiling as she called over the other clerks to see the drawings.
The chief enforcement officer bustled through on his way
somewhere else and wondered about all the commotion. When he saw
the drawings and heard that I had just whipped them up right
there at the counter he did not believe it. 
He studied the drawings with a grimace, and said he
would need a detail showing the nailing pattern for the joint
where the joists meet the girder. I said I was not
planning to use nails, instead I would mortise the joists
into the girder. I could see the red coming up his neck and into
his face as he quoted the applicable code references one after
another. I sketched up the required detail right in front of him,
indicating how the load flows through the joint. He took a brief
glance and began to smile. He looked around, held the sketch up
for everyone to see, and said, "Approved!, Furthermore, I
put you on Self Inspection," just let us know when you are
complete, which ought to give me enough time to deal with
this..." waving a thick file in his hand he wheeled around
and stomped out, clearly headed for trouble on someone else's
project.
That was one of my finer days at the codes enforcement office.
It's always better to make friends with your code enforcement
officer before you start a project than to find yourself at odds
with him later on.
-- John Leeke, Portland, Maine, August 1999
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Ski Mt. HigginsHere's a winter view off our porch, of Higgins Street, which is one block long and quite flat. It's a four hour drive to the ski slopes of northern New England. But, that's no excuse for not getting out on the boards when the snow flies.
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The ice cream man here in Portland plays The Entertainer from his refrigerated truck as he drives through our neighborhood. Not too bad a tune, except his computerized version is too tinny, and way too fast. My wife, The Blues Babe, is usually "sheddin'" in her studio in the front parlor and just jams along with the tune until he turns the corner down at the end of the block. He sometimes plays his alternate tune, Turkey in the Straw. Give me a break, the tinny tunes, both in A-flat, grating on my ears, my wife jammin' along with all her fancy sound reinforcement equipment downstairs, while I'm upstairs in my home office trying to get some work done. Da-da da-dat-du-dah... I might as well go out and work in the shop for a while, except it only lasts for about 5 minutes. It really drives me crazy, crazy, crazy. I’d like to give that ice cream man a piece of my mind.
One day, Da-da da-dat-du-dah... and I ran out to have a little chat with that ice cream man. I told him just what I thought about his “music,” and he agreed, “I hate it too!” It turns out, of course, that he’s a real nice guy. We talked about Rag Time, "the biggest music of the past century." He picked that truck, because it played one of his favorite tunes. Now he’s heard it so much that he hates it! We talked about old time ice cream favorites like the Drumstick, "an ice cream sunday in a cone,” my favorite as a kid. And we talked about business. My favorite Drumstick used to cost a quarter in the 1950s, now it's $1.20. He liked talking business and I learned that his profit margin is quite slim, about 2% of gross sales. The high gas prices for his heavy duty truck had doubled his overhead and were killing the profits. I asked what the gross for the season would be right here on my street. He said, "about 30 bucks." I calculated, "about 60 cents profit." "Yeah, not much." was his rueful comment. I immediately saw our opportunity. I offered, "How would you like to double your profits here on Higgins Street, and cut your overhead?" He accepted, with a wry grin, "Where do I sign?" I handed him $1.20 in cold hard coin and asked him to not waste any more gas driving down my street. We shook on it, naming it "The Biggest Deal of the New Century." He laughed and laughed, then handed me a Drumstick, "on the house." I sat down on the curb stone to eat my ice cream and watched him drive on down the street. As he rounded the corner he looked back and waved, still with a big grin on his face. I haven't seen, or heard, him since.
John (doin' deals in the 'hood) Leeke
June 2004
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Small Midwestern towns are all alike. Except to the families who live in them. This town is special to you and so is your old home.
Sweeping up oak leaves sticking damply to your old front porch after last night's rain, you notice a little peeling paint at the base of a column. Chunks of rotten wood fall away when you poke the base with the broom handle. You sit down on the top step for a closer look, and sigh. Now you'll have to hire a carpenter, and hope that fixing it's not too costly.
As the sun beats down, the air hot and close, your thoughts begin to drift. You recall a time long past when you sat in your grandfather's lap as he leaned back against this very column. You both had just planted the oak tree in the front yard, high and leafy now, but just a slender stick of a thing back then. Grandpa had kept an eye on a storm that threatened since morning, and when you'd finished planting you sat together on this same top step to share a cool drink of water.
The storm approached with a cooling breeze and then a stronger gust with a few fat drops big as June bugs that stirred up that damp-dusty smell. Suddenly a downpour hit. You both scrambled back under the porch to curl up in a wicker chair. He told you about another storm just like this one, even more years back, one that blew in the day he built this porch.
Rain beating on a roof makes a youngster sleepy, and his story drifted in your mind. Something about aligning the columns to stand straight and tall, then a terrific gust, a column teeters, crashing down. The wind suddenly danced around the two of you, a chilly gremlin, and you worried that your granddad might've been hurt all those years ago, and about the rain pouring down now, and the thunder rolling around in the clouds above.
With a quiet respect he explained how the Corinthian columns were like trees, tapering up with leaves spreading at the top, "just like that little oak out in the front yard, drinking up the rain." Thunder booms nearby and you snuggled deeper into his embrace. It felt good having a grandpa to shield you from the storm, and you were thankful that he'd built a porch as strong as oaks to protect you from the thunder.
Today, it's not rainy at all, just another hot, muggy summer afternoon, and that time is long past, and your grandfather lives only in your memories. The tree is still here, though, tall and sheltering, and so is the porch, in need of a little repair. So somewhere you'll find a sensible carpenter who will repair the column. Patch it up, so it'll protect your children, and in time their children, too.
Or maybe, you think, leaning back against that very column, maybe you'll just fix up this fine old porch yourself.
-- John Leeke, Plattsmouth, Nebraska, June 1996
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A few inches of late-spring snow yesterday made for a chilly dawn hike, west out of Atkinson, across the flat plains of northern Nebraska. It’s been three years since my last trip and I wanted an early start. Marking six miles was a cinch counting off the shelterbelts of Osage Orange and Russian Olive trees. Occasionally a dark grove of Cottonwoods loomed up out of the morning fog. I’ve been sitting here on the damp grass for a while now, sketching the remnants of the cottonwoods at the Johann Tomsik sod house homestead site. Just a few of these giants of the plains remain, the last testament to this forgotten spot. The sod house and barn have long since melted back into the earth. The morning sun breaks through the fog and warms up my hands. Its been a wet spring and water swamps the ditch along the road--the Red Winged Blackbirds are mixing it up in the cattails. A rancher’s pickup turns onto the road a few miles west and speeds toward us. The birds all lite out across the field when the mud-encrusted pickup crunches to a gravelly halt. Ah, Gordon! It’s good to see his friendly grin again after so long.
I first met Gordon on my last trip out. His great-great grandfather, Frank, knew my great-great grandfather, Johann, back in the 1880’s when they homesteaded this land. Today we’re going to poke around at the Tomsik site and hike a mile further west to the Jonas homestead where there are still some sod house remnants. Striding out across the field Gordon admits he can’t remember the last time he might have walked across this field on foot. We mount a slight rise and kick at the mucky soil as we walk into a grove of a dozen or so cottonwoods. Johann planted these trees in this same month of the year 1880. The biggest are four to five feet across and they tower above us. I gaze up in wonderment and am immediately shocked back to reality as I stumble over a stone.
It’s a ring of stones just
barely above the surface --a well. Gordon didn’t even know it was here. I
kneel down to peer in, leaning over. A stone loosens and I slip a little,
teetering over the edge, then easing back. Beneath the stone is a flat slab of
rusty metal. Here are two objects, both undoubted handled and used by my
great-great grandfather over a century ago. The steel plowshare is worn down to
a rusty nub with two square holes where it was bolted to the tree of the plow,
perhaps the very one used to first cut the tough blue-stem sod for his sod
house. The stone is weathered and brown on top, but underneath: traces of green.
This is odd--I'm used to seeing tan sandstone here in northern Nebraska. Trying
to recall anything I had learned in geology class decades ago, I begin to wonder
where this stone came from and how far Johann had to haul it. I use the
plowshare to chip off a chunk and expose a fresh surface -- ah, yes, perhaps the
type of stone known as mica-shist, judging by the scalely texture of the
greenish surface. Sitting down on the edge of the well, I see this little chunk
of stone sparkles in the sunlight. I pull out my glasses to take a closer look.
As I study it the dazzling green light pulls me in, deep into the stone, and
Johann is here digging the well, cutting and fitting these rough green stones,
building up, ring-by-ring. Building up, up to a hope and then a prayer that the
new well serves the needs of his family and livestock in the coming years. Years
long since past, lost in the mourning fog of lives and times gone by--then found
again.
John Leeke, May 2001, Holt Co., Nebraska
When I was eleven 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 petty theft. "Alright," he admonished, "you're hauling these boards back over there right now, and apologizing to The Bishop." 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 trailing 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 down my forearm, clipped my ankle and hit the pavement with a clap. Wounded, I struggled to turn and pick up the board. My eyes caught his and I 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 glint in his eye. Together we carried those heavy boards, each at an end, on up to the Cathedral, and right into The Bishop's office. I remember sweatin' it out in there, with my dad and The Bishop. I can't recall what was said, but somehow we walked out of there like we were all old pals. Those three boards were mine, and I was grinning. The Bishop lead us out to the construction site and introduced us to the foreman. We walked away from there that day with permission to haul away as much of that "junk lumber" as we wanted.
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 "work smart, not hard." I learned how to let the weight of a sledge hammer knock apart a crate, 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 stone cutters laughed at me with a joke about "bent 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 it 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 stone cutters took pity on me dragging the boards and timbers home by hand. They showed me how to build a lumber dolly with an old roller skate. Over the next two years I could often be seen trundling my roller skate rig--a tall stack of boards and timbers with a bucket of bent nails balanced up on top rattling along, along down the hill.
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 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 accumulated 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 oddities about nails in
our shop. We never bought any nails, yet we always had plenty--strange. And,
since I had been 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--even stranger. My dad explained Vint's involvement with nails like
this: Vint had one passion and 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 pursuit 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 bare floor was a tree stump with a short length of railroad rail mounted on it, a hammer laying on the rail with a wooden chair beside the stump. Vint had lined all four walls from floor to ceiling with rows and rows of 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, ring-shanks, sprigs, rosehead, square cut, etc…., made of aluminum, bronze, wrought iron, monel metal 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 on it with the hammer. 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 figured out 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 his 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 was over in one corner of the cellar looking for the tenterhooks, I heard a plink over in the other corner. On my next nail I heard 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.
That summer I learned a lot about nails, and a lot about life working with Vint.
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." He was about to throw his hammer right through the window. Then his eyes melted and he smiled to say, "but, we've got nails to straighten. You know, I like my neighbors. So, I help out as I can by giving them nails when ever they need some."
By August I was back in the woodworking shop with my dad, knee deep in long curly shavings from one of those Italian boards, smoothing it up for a special project. After the Cathedral was complete my dad thought it would be nice to thank the church for all the fine wood and lessons learned. So, I was making a prayer bench for The Bishop, with carvings at each end, all held together with a few of Vint's bent nails.
Sometimes after a long day in the shop I'd drift off to sleep in my bed and hear a faint tink, tink, tink. It was Vint, working into the night on his nails.
Tink, tink. Tink. Plink.
John Leeke April 2001, College View, Nebraska
Copyright 2002 John C Leeke
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"We're saving an old gas station built in the 1920's. Do you think it's important to save the old gas pumps, or should we just replace them with modern pumps?"
One of the best reasons to save old buildings, and the gas pumps that go with them is because of their connection to the people who think they are important. Sometimes these relationships are not readily apparent, for example:
Ethyl just stood there in the warm evening air, holding the nozzle, staring through the dust cloud as Wilke peeled out in his ’38 coupé. His red taillights drifted off along Route 20 West for half an hour, then, rising up over the high plains ridge, they blinked out around that last curve. He'd be back.
That last curve was the edge of Ethyl's world. She knew she was stuck forever in this Pit Stop on the Plains. No matter. They always came back for more after a visit to Ethyl's place. It was her secret pleasure: they’re sure they get what they pay for, she gives them what they deserve. Later they come skulking back, can in hand, begging for more. Wilke said he was headed for Casper, but Ethyl knew better. He’d stop for pie and coffee at the café in Harrison just to lay his eyes on that cute waitress they got there. Then he’d peel out on her too. Let her stare at his red taillights for a change. Ethyl never had much use for school, but she could calculate: dollars and cents, miles to the tenth and gallons to the hundredth. She knew Wilke would be running out of gas just about the time he crossed over the state line--right about now. Him out there on the gravel shoulder in the dark, rummaging through the junk in his trunk, cursing and praying he still had that gas can.
Ethyl knew he’d be
heading back. He’d have to walk right by that café, with her
looking out, coming to the door, laughing at him, him with his
can in his hand, as he gets on by there, quick like.
Ethyl kept an eye out for Wilke. He’d pay the price, just like all the rest.
-- John Leeke, Chadron, Nebraska, October, 2000
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We've all heard it before: "Measure twice, cut once." and "No matter how many times I cut the end off that board it's still too short." It's an age old problem for carpenters. Historical researchers have reported mentions of a device call the Board Stretcher since the late middle ages. I, along with every carpenter since then, have occasionally wished I had one of these mythic tools. At least I thought they were a myth until I was on a project at an historic house museum here in Maine. The original owner kept a detailed journal as he constructed his house from 1815 to about 1825. He describes work in progress as well as making some of his own carpentry tools. One day we were studying his journal where he describes making a special miter box and clamp for sash making. The next day we found the very same miter box under some flooring planks in the barn. While were were under there, our flashlight caught the glint of shinny metal further back. In the next entry of the journal he wishes he had a timber stretcher because his son had just cut off a stack of planks too short. We were beside ourselves, we just knew we had found a timber stretcher laying under the flooring planks of the barn. Well, I say "we found," but we could not get a really good look at it. Every time we pulled up a plank and try to peer under the edge of one of the neighboring planks to see the stretcher, the plank stretched out to cut off our view. We tried this a dozen times or more, and before we knew it the barn had an entirely new floor. The local codes enforcement officer happened to stop by to check out our project and wanted to observe this amazing phenomenon for himself. He got down on his hands and knees, took just one look under the edge of the plank and it stretched right out and bumped him in the forehead. One of the carpenters quipped that we could sell tickets to the tourists who would line up to see something so amazing. The codes officer immediately put a stop-order on any further observations of the board stretcher citing the possibility that if uncontrolled observations continued the entire town would be decked over by mid-summer.
-- John Leeke, Blue Hill, Maine, May 1996
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***** It's too cold out here on the porch in the middle of the winter, please step into the parlor:
Tonight I’m sitting in front of the parlor fireplace of my old house which was built in 1899. The heat from the fire feels good. It’s been below zero all day here in Maine and I’m trying to keep the thermostat turned down to save a few energy dollars. It was warm enough last August when my wife and I began stripping the paint off the woodwork here in the parlor. Since it was first painted in the 1950s it has become a little shabby looking – chipped around the doorways and peeling back at the loose and open joints. By Thanksgiving the tedious job was done. Seven coats of shellac has returned a reddish-brown glow to the woodwork that now has a burnished character that reflects hours upon hours of careful hand work.
We’re in the middle of searching for wallpaper and the walls are still bare plaster. The other day a friend said the smears of reddish shellac on the plaster around the edges of the woodwork look like an elderly lady who hasn’t got her lipstick on quite right. So, not quite done, but still, after living here for nearly five years, the room now seems "right."
I’ve scraped, sanded and rubbed every square inch of the woodwork with my own hands. This is not a grand place – it was built for a milkman and undoubtedly the woodwork was ordered out of a catalog and not custom made. I carefully pried the mail order mantle off the wall so it would be easier to strip and refinish. While it was off I cleaned the debris and dust off the breast of the chimney to eliminate this serious fire hazard. I investigated the crack in the mortar between the facing bricks around the fireplace and found that it was indeed a minor crack that did not penetrate to the flue of the chimney. I like to rout out these demons of deterioration whenever I get the chance. While poking around back of the mantel I found a scrap of the original wallpaper that is giving us some ideas in our search for a new wallpaper. Our son stripped all the mid-twentieth century wallpaper off the walls and showed me where the plaster is weak and needs repairs before the new wallpaper goes up. There is still some work to do…as usual when you live in an old house. Let’s see, if I turn the thermostat down just a little I’ll save a few dollars to pay for the materials to repair the plaster.
I’m pleased with this intimate knowledge of the place where I live. It helps me feel comfortable here. The woodwork is just right, after all we worked on it until it suits our taste exactly. I know there are no monsters hiding in the walls. This form of comfort is real enough that I can turn down the thermostat another degree and still feel comfortable.
In my professional work I help others care for their old buildings. I am often trying to help them understand why their old building is important to them. One reoccurring issue is a curiosity about, and sometimes an obsession with, those who has lived in the house before. Is this really important? After all the past is gone and we are now living in the twenty-first century. Even if we are not interested in who has come before us there are subtle clues to the existence of past occupants that enter our subconscious. The worn threshold into the kitchen proves that it is safe to walk through this doorway, many have done so before – timbers will not come crashing down on you if you pass this way. A glance out the front window across the lawn and down the street assures you all is well – the wolves are not creeping up on the entrance to your cave. A safe place that has stood the test of time has to be one of components of "comfort." Bump that thermostat down another notch.
Over the last hundred years four other families have found this to be a safe and comfortable place and now I do too. I sit here with my family and think, "this place feels right." The fire is dying down but I still feel the glow of the embers on my face. On my back side I feel a little chilly. Hey ! Who turned the thermostat down to 55? Can’t we afford a little heat around here?
-- John Leeke, Portland, Maine, January, 2000
Feel free to e-mail your comments on this story, or tell one of your own. Stop in any time you see us out on the porch, and catch another story.
"We love your "By Hammer and Hand Great Works Do Stand, by Pen and Thought Best Words are Wrought." byline...are you the originator of it?"
It is an adaptation with a long tradition, where I have carved my own little notch. I grew up in my father's woodworking shop and had my own bench by the time I was ten years old. Occasionally I had questions he could not answer right off. I can picture it now, as he would reach up to the bookshelf above my bench saying, "let's just check Audels on that." Audel's Carpenter's and Builder's Guide is a set of books that he had bought in 1923 when he was just starting in the trades. The small tool-box-sized volumes had a weighty heft that suggested the extensive woodworking information compacted on their thin pages. Gold embossed sub-titles like Cornice Work, Saw Troubles and Piazza Details, sparkled on the spines like gems--just a hint of the treasury in woodworking knowledge to be discovered within.
On the black leather cover was embossed an emblem, not in gold, but very subtle, barely noticeable: a hammer floating over the sunrise. My dad would take my hand in his and guide my fingers to touch and slide over the emblem and ask, "Where do we seek knowledge?" I reply, "In the east." He asks "What is the carpenter's tool?" "The hammer." --all very mysterious, I didn't get it right away, thinking, "let's just look up the answer, here's the index right here." Then he would say, "Yes, in the east, at the beginning," as he opened Audels up to the title page. At the top of the title page was printed:
"by hammer and hand all things do stand"
So, every time we looked up in Audels, my dad would begin by reading the motto there, "by hammer and hand all things do stand." Well, after a couple years I knew the ritual by heart and by the time his hand was up to the book on the shelf I could cut to the quick with: "begin in the east, by hammer and hand all things to stand." When I was thirteen I had arrived at that place in the east where the sun begins to rise, and I began making rather realistic pencil drawings and my dad said, "anyone who can draw like that becomes the woodcarver of the shop." I was used to doing what my dad told me to do, so I did become the woodcarver and when I was fifteen I carved a crest out of white oak for a fraternity down at the university. It was acclaimed by the client and by my dad as a "great work." I adapted and adopted the Audels motto as my own:
"By Hammer and Hand Great Works Do Stand"
Since then it has been my personal motto. Later, during some scholarly research, I was cut back down a notch when I "discovered" that the New York Mechanick Society had:
"By Hammer & Hand all Arts do Stand"
as their motto in the eighteenth century. In the mid-1990s I was contacted by a member of the still operating New York Mechanics Society, who wanted to know if I had permission to use their motto. I told him my story and he gave me permission to use my version of the motto.
As writing became a way for me to share what I know about old buildings, I added (the original, I think, but who knows):
"By Pen and Thought Best Words are Wrought"
Do you have a motto that guides you through your work and life? If so, let us know by email.
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