I was working in my spindle factory tonight (my garage/ woodshop) sanding away at drop spindle whorls, and the smell of black walnut sawdust brought back memories.

Urban Forest Woodworks. Now, that was the COOLEST job ever. My first year of college I perservered through being salad bar girl at Sizzler and a telemarketer for long distance telephone service and landed a job in a woodshop. And not just any woodshop, mind you, it was Urban Forest Woodworks. The mastermind of this opperation was George Hessenthaler. He had piles and piles of old trees out front– trees that would normally be taken to the dump. There were old elm trees, maples, whole discarded fruit orchards. He’d cut these trees into lumber and we’d make them into pretty boxes.

For hours on end we’d stand at the “puffers” (little orbital sanders clamped to a table) decked out with ear muffs and dust masks sanding away until our box tops gleamed. (There did come a point at which George’s wife Helen put her foot down and reduced the amount of puffing. It just wasn’t economical and sand the boxes at 150, 200, 220, and 320.) Heather and Melissa and I (we were girls with power tools) would sit at the putty table and talk about getting putty in your reveals (getting kissed) and laugh hysterically upstairs as we oiled boxes and finished the interiors. (I realize now that most of the hysteria probably wasn’t really funny, but who cares when you’re breathing in all the fumes?) I could tell the difference between plum and cherry, norway maple and silver maple, english walnut and black walnut. We had so much fun. There was such a bond between us college kids working there. We were a team and loved what we did. We’d have dinners and George would pull out his Dictionary and make us play some silly game he made up, then he’d cut the bread on the band saw.

I was reminiscing tonight while I puffed my drop spindle parts.

Urban Forest Woodworks has gone through some rough times since then. But I think it’s still afloat. Last I heard George was living in the shop. He’s a man with a dream.

Thanks, Captain Knuckles, for the memories. Those are surely some of the treasures of my life.