Field of Dreams

I’ve got retirement on my brain.

Mostly because my mom retired this year and we just celebrated with her, family, and friends. But…also a little bit because I’ve been planning for retirement since 1996 and been obsessing over it ever since.

Take a trip down memory lane with me. My first ever retirement plan was to hit the Maryland Lotto and retire at (or before) age 30. One needs to reach the ripe age of 17 before purchasing a lottery ticket in Maryland. Oh, I counted those days all the way down to my 17^th b-day. When the day finally arrived, I drove straight to the 7-11 in Damascus and bought as many Lotto tickets as my birthday cash could afford. The money I won was “reinvested” immediately which led to compounding losses and eventually…no more cash. As it turns out, the lottery was not a good retirement plan for me. I haven’t given up on that dream entirely but I’ve augmented it with mitigation strategies including the Virginia Lottery and a career.

  

With Plan B well underway, I’m free to think about the more operational related pieces of retirement. I like to refer to this part of the dream as “FTB” or soccer (f)ield, (t)urnstile, and (b)arn.

1.     Soccer Field: Kinda like Groundskeeper Willy meets Ray Kinsella from Field of Dreams. I'll spend my mornings tending to the (full size) pitch. In my minds eye, it’s freshly mowed, painted and has the professional style goals where the nets are tied behind the goal forming a perfect ready-to-billow canopy.

2.     Turnstile: the Red Sox hold spring training from early February to early March each year (currently in Fort Myers, FL). I’ll spend those 4-5 weeks each year exploring a second career: as one of the ticket checkers at the turnstile gates.

3.     Barn: I want a barn to house a wood-shop real bad. Ha! I’ll build furniture in my spare time.

 
Even more important than FTB though, I hope to be surrounded by friends and family. That’s the real dream. Which is what we did with Mom this weekend. So enjoy the retired life, Ma. You’ve earned it.

Memorial Box

I kept a red rose from the spray that was placed over Dad’s casket.  As February approached, I put pencil to paper and designed a memorial box for Dad.  Since then, the project has been in various states of progress.  Finding a woodshop wasn’t easy but I finally got connected to the Eliot School.  From there, it was the basic woodworking class and finally private lessons.  I was extremely happy to find a capable guide in my basic woodworking instructor.  Jeff and I worked on the box for three days.  The first day was about construction planning and milling.  On the second day, we made most of the cuts.  The third day was reserved for hardware and final assembly.  After a lot of effort (and learning), the memorial box is complete!

Actually, I built two boxes.  One memorial box and one…don’t know yet.  The memorial box is built from reclaimed barn lumber (pine) on account of the strength required and imperfections exposed while absorbing the weathers of our world.  I left the exterior of the box untouched to preserve the metaphor.  The lumber came from a place outside of the city.  Selecting the wood is a critically important step.  If the wood is too cracked, bowed, warped, or damaged…then the whole construction will fail.  You can see below just how confident I really was.

The centerpiece of the shadow box is the rose from Dad’s casket spray.  He used to wear a suit and tie to work every day of the week.  All of his ties were styled in the vein of corporate conservatism.  I’m willing to bet that he only ever purchased one more tie after he left that line of work.  That tie is the backdrop for the rose centerpiece.  There’s also a small hidden compartment behind the upholstered shelf which is a perfect store for a few mementos.

I feel fortunate to have designed, constructed, and completed the memorial box (on Dad’s birthday nonetheless!).  Clearly, I could not have completed the box on my own.  I got some excellent help along the way.  I found that this was a project that resonated with a lot of people; men especially.  From the folks at the lumber yard, to the guys at the hardware store, to Jeff the woodworking guru…everyone took the time to verbalize their sympathy AND appreciation for, get this, allowing them to contribute to the memorial project.  It’s warming and astounding to hear that someone else was honored to participate.

Hot Dogs & Stop Saws

I've always enjoyed working with my hands.  I think it's a product of working around the house with Dad as a boy.  I enjoy the satisfaction received whilst standing back and seeing the tangible fruits of my labor.  All too often these days, my efforts culminate into a chaotic torrent of 1's and 0's.

A couple of months ago, I enrolled in a woodworking course at the Eliot School, a nearby Crafts and Fine Arts school.  I took the wood shop course back at good ol' DHS but this Eliot thing is some real-life Bob Villa stuff.

This course is mostly intended as an introduction to the wood shop and the machines that will do the most/least damage: the jointer will undoubtedly do the most damage while the sander is more akin to a massage.  My instructor joked(!?) that the jointer is the most dangerous as it won't leave anything for the surgeon to sew on.  Uh...  Onward!

My project was a Shaker Box.  It turns out many things in woodworking are not much more than a box (think cabinets).  Talk about a valuable skill.  Imagine not having to buy cabinets when you redo a kitchen!  During the course of the project I used, among other things, a planar, chop saw, belt sander, chisel, table saw, band saw, dado cutter, and yes, a jointer.

The first part of our process was milling.  It made me wonder, how many generations ago did my ancestors take our surname?  I don't recall what the other steps were called...couldn't have been that important!  Here's the final product.  Click into my Shaker Box album to watch the step by step progress.

The instructors are entertaining in a dark-cabinetmaker-sense-of-humor sort of way.  They love to tell stories about the time Stinky Steve lost two of his fingers in the Jointer.  Or the time they were nearly impaled by a rogue piece of lumber.  Or testing whether a hot dog will actually trigger the Stop Saw.