(HOST) This fall, commentator Willem Lange is building a barn – and reflecting on the joys and concerns of an old carpenter.
(LANGE) When anthropologists exhumed the bodies of the citizens of Herculaneum, a town buried in ash in the 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius, they could distinguish the various classes by their bones. The poor had suffered from malnutrition. The wealthy, who drank wine warmed from glazed bowls, had levels of lead high enough to be called lead poisoning. Tradesmen showed the effects of hard labor, by calcification of the vertebrae, or the overdevelopment of the bones of their dominant arms. Almost all the workmen had some arthritis. They took their union cards with them, you might say, into the next world.
You wouldn’t think it if you were watching an old man cutting rafters for his barn, but that’s the kind of thing running through his mind. I muse that while I can touch my right thumb and middle finger around my left wrist, I can’t come close on the other wrist. And what’ll an anthropologist make of all the titanium, Tupperware, and ceramic material in my body?
Cutting rafters is pretty dull work. But getting them just the exact right length is quite exciting. The chance of ruining two 18-foot rafters can make an old guy nervous. So I cut two, lugged them upstairs, and laid them out flat as they would be when vertical. Perfect!
It’s impossible to describe the tactile joy of carpentry, except to those who already know it from their own experience. In the Fifties I had the chance to work with a crew of Adirondack old-timers. Their tools seemed a part of their arthritic hands; shavings fell clean from their work; they cursed a hammer blow that left "French dressing" beside a nail. "This may look simple," Bill Broe said to me as he planed a door, "but we’re all doing the best we can all the time. That’s why we leave our names somewhere in everything we build."
About three in the afternoon, the sun dips behind the spruces to the west of the barn. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to do physical work, and my gait is still lopsided; but as I move along the top of the side walls above the second floor, marking the location of each of the 38 rafters, I realize I’m not thinking about walking, and that I’m almost ready to get a crew over here for a couple of days to set rafters. I hope they know how to shrink or stretch a rafter with a 16-penny toenail, because I don’t want to insult them by asking.
The afternoon light turns gold. I’m looking over the ridge to the east toward Spruce Mountain. The old familiar weight of my leather apron hangs on my shoulders, my hammer bumping against my knee on one side. God, I’m going to hate having to give this up someday! Guess I’ll write my name up near the peak of a rafter and call it a day.
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and it’s about time to quit work.