Finding out you made a difference

[ThomasPowers]

Nothing better than finding out you made a difference in someone's life.  A favorite time of mine was at an SCA event when a fellow with possibly thalidomide defects was hanging around the forge and I asked if he wanted to forge.  YES!   We had to make some adaptations, using tong clips, help with striking, etc; but he was able to do his first project.  Later his girlfriend stopped by and told me I had made his event if not his year!  At other activities; everyone else was "Don't do this you might get hurt" and I was "Lets figure a way out for you to do this!"  I figured he was an adult and could chose his own risks.

Last night my wife told me my stepson had told her that my teaching him how to live well frugally had paid off big time in his life; especially with respect to buying high quality used tools on the cheap; instead of cheap quality new tools that have to be replaced again and again. 

OTOH my step daughter has been begging us to remove "the parents curse" as her twins  are becoming teenagers.    

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

It does feel good to help people.

When I taught wood carving at Scout Camp I had one young Scout around 11/12  that was in my class. They were using the basic BSA neckerchief slide kits, and I suggested the Comic Crow as the starter project.  He used the coping saw and cut the profile out and handed it to me to be signed off.  I had him look at it and said it looked like Franken crow with the square edges and that he needed to round it up. He brings it back with a slight chamfer at best to be signed off, and I said no. I grabbed my pocketknife and did one corner for him, and said Now make the rest like that.  I kept pushing him to do better, and by the end of the week he had done a really nice job on it.  When I signed it off he looked at and said something as he was looking at his slide that has stuck with me all these years "Hmmm, I can do something."

[Glenn]

It is always nice to teach in such a way that the student must succeed, no matter what.  One success inspires them to do more, again with a they must succeed project.  Now they think they can conquer the world, and they are correct in that assumption.

[Frosty]

People that lack self confidence just don't know how to do things. It can start anywhere but is best started young. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[ThomasPowers]

One thing I have noticed over the years is that more and more people have never built something that actually exists.  I grew up building forts and treehouses and making things from scrap lumber; now a lot of kids have basically never used a hammer.  They may be high level whatists on some video game but they have NOTHING to show for all that time and effort and the skills they learned may not be very transferrable.  Work them through their first S hook and suddenly they have something that they can show their kids, grandkids and great grandkids that they have MADE!

And Frosty is right:  Better when started young!  So all my grandkids get tools for Christmas!

[George N. M.]

I think there is a basic mental difference between craft people, blacksmiths, weavers, wood workers, welders, etc., and non-craft people who don't make anything tangible with their hands and brain.  And this is a difference that can be encouraged and nourished.  It is not genetic or otherwise inherent.  I think than when most of us look at something new that we like the first thought is "how is that made?" and the second is "could I make it?"  To a non-craft person it is "Where could I buy that?" and "Can I afford it?"  There is a creative mind set which being able to do a craft encourages.  I think this, even if we don't articulate it, is what we are teaching when we bring someone into and up in the craft.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[ThomasPowers]

Even on IFI I am somewhat surprised when folks want to *buy* things that can be simply made.

 

[Frosty]

We get a lot of guys at meetings who not only haven't used a hammer, some have never seen one in person. 

When I was a kid someone in the neighborhood's parents getting a new fridge or washer dryer was big news! Let the forts and tank building begin! If you open both ends of a box you can get inside, crawl and you're a tank commander! We did lots of dangerous stuff too, rock fights developed rules and became dirt clod fights. NO ROCKS!

Saw Paladin make and use an atlatl on "Have Gun Will Travel" and we were making pea gravel throwers from bamboo. It took maybe 10 minutes to make a minimum distance rule and start wearing PPE. We moved away from that house when I was 9 and I could sling pea gravel farther than I could throw a rock.

It was GREAT when the big kids would try picking on us. We'd let them get close then blast them with a horizontal no miss spray to the shins. We could raise welts and draw blood through Levis at 50'. Marbles probably would've been lethal ammunition. 

Well said George. My kind of people usually start redesigning things as soon as we figure out how they work. I've never asked if I COULD make that, I usually asked how I'd make it and with a little maturity, if it was worth the trouble. 

Yes, showing people they CAN DO things sparks the, "want to do," in them. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

George, I have bought several old rifles only to do a full disassembly once I got home to look at milling marks and other clues to how it was made.  I still want to know how they made the hinge point on an 1873 Trapdoor Springfield. Even today, that is not and easy operation by the methods they had access to.  I have an idea, but I want to see exactly how it was done.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

When I was on the police department, there was a young boy about ten years old who had an old beat up bicycle. One day when my shift was over he was walking his bike home, because it had a flat tire. I had him bring it into the dept. garage and because he lived near by, I sent him home to ask his mom if he could come back and I would teach him how to fix it. Fortunately we had a bike patrol at the time so all the tools and tube repair kits were there.

He came back all aglow with his mom in tow. She was surprised that I was willing to help him. I set the bike upside down and gave him the wrenches needed to take the front wheel & tire off and showed him how to use them. He had the wheel off in no time and I helped him get the tire & tube off the rim. After I patched the tube he was able to put it back on the rim and fill the tire up from the Dept. air compressor. He put the wheel back on the bike all by himself. I showed him how to oil the chain and adjust it which he did without any help. I had some extra tools in my truck, that with his mothers permission, I gave him so he could work on his bike at home.

Jump forward several years and I was talking to his mother about another unrelated matter and she told me her boy was a changed person due to my helping him and he was fixing other kids bikes in the neighborhood and planed to open a bike shop when he grew up.

[George N. M.]

Sometimes you help someone and you don't even know it.  Years ago I was a city prosecutor.  I got a call from a guy who said that his brother was up on some charge (I don't recall what it was, shop lifting, simple assault, petty theft, something like that).  I expected to hear a sob story about how the defendant was actually a good kid but misunderstood, etc..  Actually, the guy told me that his brother had been skating all his life and had never had to suffer any real consequences.  He had always been given another chance and he wanted me to be tough on him.  When I read the case file there were enough aggravating factors that I would have asked the judge for jail time even without the phone call.  As I recall, he was sentenced to a fairly hefty fine and a week or 10 days in the county jail.  I thought that was the end of the story.

About 2 years later my wife and I were out to dinner and a guy walks up to our table and asked if I was George Monsson.  Since he didn't seem hostile I admitted that I was. He turned out to be the brother who called me and said he wanted to shake my hand.  He told me the shock of spending some jail time had really shaken up his brother and he had not been in trouble since and had really turned his life around.  He almost cried telling me how I had helped his brother so much.  Didn't see that one coming but I am glad there was a good outcome.

Sometimes you get a gold star in your karma book that you never expected.  I am sure that many of us have done something for someone that we didn't think twice about but had a much more profound effect on the recipient than we ever imagined.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[JHCC]

Back when I was in high school in Vermont, there was a fellow named Ben who rode the same school bus -- rather a rough character, something of a loner, and lived in a trailer in one of the poorer corners of town. We weren't friends, but certainly not enemies.

One day, there was a commotion in the hallway, and I ran over to find Ben squaring off with a classmate of mine named Joe. This being high school, all the other kids were in a big circle around the two of them, egging them on to fight (almost all supporting Joe, of course, who was both bigger and more popular). Although I'm essentially a pacifist, I slipped myself between them, facing Joe and telling him as calmly as I could to be cool and let it go. He was screaming at me to back off, but I held my ground until the vice principal arrived and broke things up. I almost got hauled to the office myself, but everyone said I was trying to break it up so I got off free.

Years later, I happened to pick Ben up as he was hitchhiking from our mountain village down into town for work. We chatted a bit about what we'd been up to, and just before he got out of the car, he said, "Thanks for standing up for me that time. You're the only person at that school who ever had my back." It broke my heart.

I haven't seen him since, and I have no idea what he's up to or even if he's still alive, but I hope he's okay.

[anvil]

 

i had a similar experience. I offered my community a donation of some ironwork, a walkway arch for the new park. A few months later they upped the antie to a 24' arch that would span a road, far beyond my abilities. I took the project to Francis Whitaker for a masters workshop or whatever he wanted. He agreed with the rider that I had to have approval for the city and all other logistical details. It took me nearly a year to muddle thru the local politics and I finally got the city counsel approval. It became our cemetery entryway arch.  A few years after completion I was approached by a young lady and she asked if I was the one responsible for the arch. She thanked me profusely and said her husband and daughter were buried there. She went on to say just how much the arch meant to her and how much it raised her spirits when visiting her family. Her words still have a major affect on me.