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Accidental musing on craftsmanship and building things to last.
On a cold rainy day in December 2014, I was returning home from running errands in my Washington, D.C., neighborhood. Diane Rehm was discussing Russia on NPR. I was thinking about the leftover pizza I was going to eat for lunch before heading into the shop.
Then, at an intersection two blocks from my house, I found myself stopped, pointed 90° in the wrong direction, static coming from the radio, the hat I’d been wearing on the floor of the car, and airbags deployed.
I’d been in an accident. One of us – we both thought the other guy – had run a red light. It was never determined who made the error; both cars were totaled but all humans were, more or less, OK.
The night before the wreck, my wife, Jen, and I had been at a holiday craft show. It was a fun night that ended late. When we got home, rather than unpack the car, I left a large pine box (not that kind) filled with cutting boards in the trunk, along with various other sundries and detritus. While I stood beside my wrinkled Honda Civic waiting for the tow trucks and police to arrive, the rain and temperature both falling, I regretted this moment of laziness. Fortunately, a friend down the street was able to come to the scene with Jen to empty the car before it was towed.
Hours later, after the adrenaline had passed and the headache and fogginess of a mild concussion had settled in, Jen mentioned that the box holding the cutting boards had broken.
Thus chastened, I began thinking about my new country-western song: “My car is gone, my holiday plans are hosed, my head hurts, I can’t see straight, and my dovetails broke….” Then I paused and thought, “Where did it break? What broke? The wood or the joint?” I got dressed and went back out through the rain to the shop where the box was sitting.
The joy I felt when seeing that the wood had broken and not the joint was the consolation I needed.
Both cars were going about 30-35 miles per hour; the box is about 36″ long x 12″ wide, and was filled with wooden cutting boards. There was a lot of force on that box, and I would expect something to give – especially considering that the box was made from 3⁄4” pine boards. But my joints didn’t break. The wood near the joints did, yes – but the dovetails held.
In a moment when not a lot of things felt good or certain – my health, my driving capabilities, my holiday vacation, my car, etc. – I had craftsmanship.
I knew I could still cut tight dovetails that could stand up to more reasonable force than any bookshelf should ever face. And while I was told woodworking with the fogginess of a concussion was a bad idea – advice I heeded – I found myself standing in my shop with my tools, feeling a gentle calmness and clarity in the wake of calamity. -Adam Godet
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