We built a

deck at our house. Well, actually, my father-in-law and brother-in-law

built the deck with lots of help from Sabine and minimal help from me.

I moved wood, cleaned up the site, held flashlights when it got too dark

and fetched beer. Don't get me wrong, though; that was fine with me. Being

a gofer at a construction site is more my speed anyway.

The problem

started when I took wood shop and metal shop in sixth and seventh grade.

It was required to take a quarter of shop each year and I hated it. The

main reason for hating shop was my fear of being disfigured by the machines.

You might be thinking, "Good. It's good to have a healthy fear of

the machines. It is exactly that type of thinking that will keep you safe

from being disfigured." But you would be wrong.

Our metal shop

teacher, Mr. Glabicki, was disfigured. He had a metal shop accident, the

details of which I cannot recall, but he was missing fingers and the remaining

fingers were bent and misshapen. Worst of all, he would thrust it in your

face, a constant reminder of what horseplay in the shop could get you.

Not to mention the fact that he called nearly everybody a ninny. I mean,

I was a ninny, but that it is a harmful thing to call a boy in middle

school in front of his peers.

Our project

was to make wind chimes, and I think mine were probably condemned soon

after the project was over. I didn't mind using the ball peen hammer,

but I was afraid of all the power tools and their hideous, whining screams.

I never even got close to the welding area and I think even Mr. Glabicki

was glad of that.

The next year's

project was to make a candle holder, and mine turned out being a structurally

unsound, multi-level ash tray. Come to think of it, several of my ceramic

projects in art class ended up being ashtrays as well. The real irony

is that neither of my parents smoked. I made so many "ash trays"

over my years of craft projects in school and summer camps that every

celebrity in the Betty Ford Clinic could have their own personal ash tray

if I still had any of them lying around.

As for wood

shop, it seemed that there were even more nasty, dangerous tools and they

all ended with the word "saw." The teacher, and I'm ashamed

to admit that I can't remember his name right now, was a nice enough guy

and all of the other students really seemed to like him. He had all of

his digits, at least as far as I could see. If he did work with his feet

after school, that was his business.

The fear kept

me from progressing in wood shop and was an obstacle in my relationship

with the teacher. Nobody else seemed too afraid of the work and they all

got along OK with the teacher. The only positive comment I could have

received would be "well-behaved in the shop, doesn't horse around."

Our first project

was to make a sign for our rooms at home with our name on it. Mine looked

pretty rough when compared with other signs that had lots of designs and

pretty patterns. It was not very welcoming. The second project was to

be a wooden sail boat mounted on a piece of wood like a 3-D picture. My

project once again was ugly. It looked like a mounted refugee raft with

no sails and no possibility of survivors.

Thankfully,

I never had to take shop again and I never did. Unfortunately, it leaves

me in my current predicament of being too nervous around power tools to

use them correctly. I can use a drill and I did use a nail gun for a brief

period during the deck building, but you'll never see me near those digit-splitting

saws that chew through wood and bone and anything else that crosses its

path. I am getting better and more useful day by day but it is a slow

process.

Until then,

I'll keep holding the ladders, bringing tools back and forth and making

sure the beer is cold. At least I'll know that I won't have to clutch

the beer with my mangled claw and that is good enough for me.

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