Very interesting read. That story about getting the splinter taken out at the doctor's office reminded me of something very similar that happened to me. Mine was embedded about halfway down the finger. It took the doctor a long time to dig that one out, too! 😎
Carl, what a great lesson. I'm a sucker for old mechanical processes and your lumber mill history hit it out of the park! Both my grandfathers were tinkerers and I feel my love of how things work come from them.
The practical and mechanical skill level of these men are truly unappreciated. Their hardscrabble ability to get things done is unmatched. You really contrasted that with just how dangerous their day was. Then the doctors that would just have to matter of fact sew up a gash or something worse. It was truly a different day. Thanks for sharing this gem with us, Carl.
Our grandfathers were products of their times. What knowledge they had came form necessity; and mostly self taught at that! My dad was a good teacher, mainly because he had good teachers in his father, mother, uncles and aunts. The method they all used was, "Watch and learn." After WWII when the country transitioned from rural to urban, we lost a lot of valuable insight in the way we do things now. If one does not have a certified piece of paper saying he is qualified to do a certain thing, he ain't allow to do it. Our grandfathers would have thumbed their noses at that.
Also, thanks for the reads. I have been lagging behind on my end. Nice to hear from you.
Now that is a great story. Can I tell you one of mine? I was ramming posts with a hand rammer I made which weighs about forty pounds. It has four handles and my son was helping me get it up on the post and then I was doing the ramming. The ground was soft so it only took about four hits to get the post in. But I had strung up a high tensile wire to keep the line straight and when the rammer came down on the tensioned line, the rammer bounced back up and I couldn't get my head out of the way fast enough and it rang my bell up above my hairline on the right side. I really saw stars and almost fainted. Luckily I was wearing a stocking cap but I felt a trickle of blood running down over my right eye and the look on my son's face told me I had better head to the hospital. I walked towards the car and when we got to the road I took off my cap for a second and a handful of congealed blood came out and splattered all over my boot! So I let my twelve year old son drive the car to the hospital. The nurse in the emergency room who started sewing me up (not for the first time) asked me what happened and when I said I was ramming posts in the ground she quipped "were you using your head?" and the whole emergency room erupted in laughter!
A friend told me long ago that hospitals would be plumb funny if it weren't for the seriousness of what goes on in them. I have had my moment with a post driver back in the days of wood fence posts. Did not need to go to the hospital, but had a bit of a goose egg on top of my head for a while.
Very interesting read. That story about getting the splinter taken out at the doctor's office reminded me of something very similar that happened to me. Mine was embedded about halfway down the finger. It took the doctor a long time to dig that one out, too! 😎
Yikes!!
Carl, what a great lesson. I'm a sucker for old mechanical processes and your lumber mill history hit it out of the park! Both my grandfathers were tinkerers and I feel my love of how things work come from them.
The practical and mechanical skill level of these men are truly unappreciated. Their hardscrabble ability to get things done is unmatched. You really contrasted that with just how dangerous their day was. Then the doctors that would just have to matter of fact sew up a gash or something worse. It was truly a different day. Thanks for sharing this gem with us, Carl.
Our grandfathers were products of their times. What knowledge they had came form necessity; and mostly self taught at that! My dad was a good teacher, mainly because he had good teachers in his father, mother, uncles and aunts. The method they all used was, "Watch and learn." After WWII when the country transitioned from rural to urban, we lost a lot of valuable insight in the way we do things now. If one does not have a certified piece of paper saying he is qualified to do a certain thing, he ain't allow to do it. Our grandfathers would have thumbed their noses at that.
Also, thanks for the reads. I have been lagging behind on my end. Nice to hear from you.
BTW, if your grandfathers were like mine, they knew how to distill their own "medicine."
Now that is a great story. Can I tell you one of mine? I was ramming posts with a hand rammer I made which weighs about forty pounds. It has four handles and my son was helping me get it up on the post and then I was doing the ramming. The ground was soft so it only took about four hits to get the post in. But I had strung up a high tensile wire to keep the line straight and when the rammer came down on the tensioned line, the rammer bounced back up and I couldn't get my head out of the way fast enough and it rang my bell up above my hairline on the right side. I really saw stars and almost fainted. Luckily I was wearing a stocking cap but I felt a trickle of blood running down over my right eye and the look on my son's face told me I had better head to the hospital. I walked towards the car and when we got to the road I took off my cap for a second and a handful of congealed blood came out and splattered all over my boot! So I let my twelve year old son drive the car to the hospital. The nurse in the emergency room who started sewing me up (not for the first time) asked me what happened and when I said I was ramming posts in the ground she quipped "were you using your head?" and the whole emergency room erupted in laughter!
A friend told me long ago that hospitals would be plumb funny if it weren't for the seriousness of what goes on in them. I have had my moment with a post driver back in the days of wood fence posts. Did not need to go to the hospital, but had a bit of a goose egg on top of my head for a while.