The Daily Grind

The grinding was done freehand on a belt sander. A template was provided to check the angles against, but otherwise the only control was the skill of the guy doing the grinding. Now that I have spent a lifetime in manufacturing I can see that it was a poor way to control a process. I did however; start me down the path of understanding the connection between mind and body.
I ruined probably 30 of the first ones I tried to grind. Grind a little bit, test, grind a little bit more, test, grind some more-Crap-throw it away-do it again.
I don’t know at what point when I actually entered the zone. 200 pieces, 500 pieces, a thousand-I don’t know. All I know is that there were 3 angles on the part and I was doing it in 3 moves. Grind, rotate, grind, rotate, grind, drop in a bucket. I took you longer to read this than it took me to do it. I didn’t even check them and they always fit beautifully. I did not check them because I could feel that they are right. If one happened to not feel right I would set it aside and more than likely it would need some adjustment.

Peace in the Mess

But more importantly it was how I felt while I was doing it. It was loud, dirty, nasty work and I felt wonderful. I was at peace with all the world. All my attention was focused on my task but another part of me was free to drift. It was as if the intense task at hand captured all of my logical brain and my subconscious? was allowed to roam free. It was magic amid the heat, dust and noise.
Fast forward 25 years and I was in the middle of a hay field I had purchased 3 years earlier. I was not ready to build a house yet but I had to do something and a fence to define the house site and a shed for shelter and shade was just the ticket.
I was now no stranger to this sometimes elusive idea of working in the zone.
I had set all the posts (that is another story) and I was attaching the horizontal boards that define the fence itself.
There has been millions of dollars spent I am sure researching the best was to construct a power driven screw. There is nothing more exasperating than having the head of the screw strip out or have the driver jump out of screw head half way into a board. I have settled on using deck screws with a modified Phillips head that seem to work the best.

A Man’s Best Friend is His Drill

Except for the heavy bolts for the beams I have used these almost exclusively in my house. Very few nails and about a 100,000 screws so far.
I had no electricity so I purchased an 18V cordless drill and circular saw set by Dewalt. This along with a couple extra batteries and a car charger would keep me going all weekend. They are both still going strong.
As I learned to use the drill I would press very hard on it to keep it from jumping out. After a hundred screws or so I was tired and my hands, arms, shoulders and back hurt. Luckily it was time to quit for the day. Early the next morning I was at it again. As the day wore on it got easier. I had to put less and less pressure on the drill to get it to stay engaged. At one point much to my amazement I had to only squeeze it with thumb and forefinger with no pressure applied by my arm. It was as if the drill was being sucked in with screw.
As I continued to work I realized that I could “feel” when the axis of the drill was perfectly lined up with the axis of the screw and the direction of travel. And it was so pleasurable. I didn’t care about getting the work done I just wanted to stay on this high. This overwhelming narcotic. My body had learned the mechanics of the work though mindful repetition. It hooked up with the command center (my brain) and together they worked as a team sending and receiving the millions of tiny signals and transmitting them into minute muscular adjustments.

No Easy Answers

What an absolute miracle-And I was aware of it all. It seemed as if the whole world flowed through me into those small screws and then into the wood. When at last I came to the sun was low in the sky, there were no more boards and I had a fence. The joy of seeing the fence complete took a back seat to the feeling of loss as whatever had held me faded away. It had not left me completely though. A little piece of it remained. I carry a small piece of everything I have ever made with me and everything I have ever made carries a small piece of me.
I would like to tell you that there is an easy way but I cannot. The key is repetition. Doing it over and over and over again-mindfully. I believe it was Andre Agassi that would practice 1000 backhands a day, then 1000 serves a day.
I don’t care who you are or what you are doing, if you practice mindful repetition you will get better. If you do this I guarantee that the goal of the doing will take a back seat to the doing itself.

Waiting for the line to clear ahead of me after we landed, I reached for Cat.

Catriona and I had been together for a long time. I love violin and in particular, Celtic fiddle music. Ours was an on again, off again relationship. I would put her down for long stretches of time and then pick her up again with renewed commitment. We were in one of those periods of commitment and care. It had been a good trip. I had found a lake close to the hotel and we settled in on a picnic table to practice and play.

A group of swans was making its way down the shore line. As they came in front of us, as a group they all turned and faced us as we played. They stayed a good 20 minutes as we worked though our exercises and a few tunes. When we finished they moved on. More than a little cool.

Despite this unexpected connection I was a bit dejected. As I said, we had been doing this for years. Truth be told, I could not really play. I was never comfortable holding her. My neck and left arm would hurt after a practice sessions. Plus, I did not really understand music.

However, as I pulled her from the overhead, my mind was not on any of this. I had been aware of a voice a couple of seats behind me for the last portion of the flight.

Was that an accent I heard? It was a rich and complex voice. Almost familiar. Nonchalantly, I casually glanced behind me. Not expecting much. Voices never match appearances. I was wrong-dead wrong.

A deep coppery braid cascaded down one side of her head, terminating and curling suggestively around a well formed breast. Golden cream colored skin and exotic eyes. Petit but with curves in all the right places, she engaged her seatmate, a middle aged woman, with all her attention.

I did my best not to stare, but it didn’t matter –she was oblivious to me.
As the plane emptied, I found reason to “adjust” my luggage as she passed by.

I quickly followed.
The view from the back was equally enticing. A slight sway to the hips mesmerized me.

As we left the ramp, I followed like a lost puppy-oblivious to my surroundings.

I followed as she headed to the exit for baggage claim. Abruptly she pulled up short in front of a door that said –NOT AN EXIT ALARM WILL SOUND.

She turned and placed her slim hand directly in the center of my chest as I nearly ran up on her. I can feel the warmth of it even now.

Looking me square in the eye she said “You and I are going in a completely wrong direction.”
We stood that way for a few seconds or a lifetime- I don’t know which.

I remember the gold flecks in her hazel eyes as they bored into me relentlessly.

I remember the amusement that danced across her face as I struggled to make sense of the situation.

And I remember the satisfaction that lit her whole self as recognition dawned.

Catriona!

I stood transfixed as she removed her hand from my chest and moved past me.
By the time I turned to look for her-she was gone.

The night had worn on and husbands, as they will do, had turned the conversation to politics and such. Cloistered at one end of the table they were sequestered unto themselves. This was not a new situation for them and appeared to welcome it.

I know not the conversation for it was not my business to know.

But it is hard to ignore love when you see it displayed so well. All attention was riveted one upon the other. Care and warmth flooded between them. Self was nonexistent and only the other occupied their attention. Love comes in many forms and I was happy to experience this if only as an outsider.

A little piece of this is now a part of the fabric of my life. It is important to choose the threads that weave us.

What happens next

Depends.
A star such as our sun will eventually grow into a Red Giant, convert the helium in the core to carbon, then nova or explode its outer shells into nebulae. The carbon in the core will glow white from the retained heat making a white dwarf that will eventual cool into a black dwarf about the size of the earth. Pretty tame stuff. Except for the fact if it were our sun it would obliterate all life on our planet.

Intractable Iron

A star with 5 times the mass of our sun or more has enough heat and pressure to fuse heavier and heavier elements. Helium into carbon, carbon into oxygen, oxygen into silicon and so on. Right up the periodic table until it smacks into element number 26-Fe or IRON.
Iron is a pretty selfish character. All the previous reactions have released energy. Iron sucks it up. Now the big guy is in trouble. Its size had only postponed the inevitable. Fortunately for us and the universe at large it became a heavy element factory during its struggle. The ensuing collapse and spectacular explosion (supernova) creates all the elements heavier than iron and sends them as well as iron and all the lighter elements out into the universe to be used to make new stuff-ourselves included. Iron is at the heart of us-literally. Hemoglobin in our red blood cells is the iron containing protein that carries all of our oxygen to all of our cells. No iron- no us. No supernovas-no us.

Visitors From Space

The picture at left is the Hoba meteorite in Namibia Africa. It is the largest know chunk of naturally occurring surface iron in the world. It weighs is at 70 or 80 tons-140,000 to 160,000 pounds.

It arrived around 80,000 years ago. Blown out of the core of some distant star. Hurtling across space for a rendezvous with earth. It is conjectured that it came in at a low angle skipping through the atmosphere like a flat stone on water slowing down so that it left no crater. A farmer in 1920 found it while plowing his field. It has never been moved. It is 160,000 pounds after all. Looks good where it is don’t you think?

Huge Resource

Iron is the most abundant element in the earths crust. It occurs almost exclusively in the form of iron oxides. Rust is a form of iron oxide. Iron has a tremendous affinity for oxygen. Early earths oceans were loaded with free iron. As soon as oxygen entered the picture the water and oxygen reacted with iron to form vast deposits of iron oxides. These deposits became rock and form the basis for the iron ores we mine today. Mainly magnetite and hematite.
Hematite’s chemical formula is Fe2O3. Magnetite is Fe3O4. In order to get usable iron. The oxygen has to be removed in a process called reduction. The rock it is bound up in it has to be removed as well. It is a complex chemical reaction that our ancestors figured out a few thousand years ago using simple technologies.
We will do the same.
Next-the hunt for Black Iron

I have had worse jobs, but I can’t seem to remember them. The owners of this yard were miserable human beings and saw to it that all those around them were just as miserable. It was a family owned and operated business. Every one of them, from the old man who occasionally stopped by to deal out abuse to the two sons that actually ran the yard, were hard and unforgiving individuals.

Only a brother-in-law, who was the yard foreman, seemed to have any charity in his soul.

Because of my slight build (six foot, one-hundred and forty-five pounds) one of the jobs that fell to me was first man in when we unloaded boxcars of lumber. This lumber was cut in the far northwest, loaded into metal boxcars green and shipped to us in a small East Texas town in the middle of a Texas summer. By green, I mean these boards had a moisture content of about forty percent. These boxcars would wend there way south under the blazing sun, sometimes taking weeks to reach their destination. When they reached us, the metal on these boxcars was too hot to touch. Upon opening the doors, great clouds of steam would boil out into the relatively cool (101- 106 degF) air. The temperature inside these things must have been 120 degrees with the humidity around 200 percent (yea, I know that is impossible, you just had to be there).

Whoever loaded these things really knew how to get the most out of a given amount of space. They were literally packed to the gills. We would stand on ladders and pull boards out until there was enough space for me to crawl in and lay on my stomach with the top of the boxcar inches above my head. It actually rained inside there. The condensation would drip off the ceiling, soaking me only slightly faster than my own sweat, which erupted from me within seconds of entering the boxcar.

My job was to lay on my stomach, grab the end of sixteen foot two by twelve, ease it out the side door and down to the guys waiting on the ground to stack it on a fork lift to be carried to the drying sheds. Every time I stuck my head out the door to get a breath of relatively cool air, one of the owners would yell at me to not keep the men on the ground waiting. Like I said, a bunch off real sweet hearts.

One of the few perks of this job was going on a delivery to help unload the truck. Now, you might not think unloading a truck full of lumber would be very exciting. However, it got me out of the yard and away from the ever vigilant eyes of the aforementioned owners.
Plus, I could relax on the trip out and the trip back.

There was one run we made on a fairly regular basis. It was a pretty long trip, so we would load the truck the night before and be on the road early the next morning. The regular driver on this route had been born and raised in a small town along the way. We would stop at a small cafe in town for a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.

By the time we arrived the “regulars” were just finishing up breakfast. The main industry of this little town was agriculture and the men seated in this cafe had already put in what most people would consider a half-days hard work.

The cafe was set up like every Texas small town cafe I have ever seen. Booths lined the wall and no matter which one a person sat in, that was the one that had the sunken place in it, making you feel as if you were sitting in a hole. In the middle of the room was a large table with a multitude of chairs around it. This was the regulars table and you did not sit there unless invited.

As we walked in the chorus directed at my companion was nearly always the same. “ How ya’ doin’”. “Talked to your mama yesterday”. “Who’s that beanpole ya’ got with ya’”. I took some offense to the last remark. Even if I was on the slim side I considered myself a strapping young lad, able to carry my own weight and half of someone else’s. Despite my chagrin (or because of it) the name stuck and I was “Beanpole” forever after in that little cafe.

Basically I was a city kid. I had been born in a large metropolis and the smallest town I had ever lived in had a population of seventy-five thousand. It was here, among the bacon and eggs washed down by endless cups of coffee, that I was introduced to reality. As I sat there, sipping coffee from the thick ceramic mug that must be a standard in every cafe in America, I listened as these men spoke of their lives.

It literally astounded me. In an abstract sort of way I knew that the food I ate everyday did not originate at the grocery store. I knew the corn and the peas and the beef were grown somewhere, but I had never connected it with men and women, young boys and girls getting up at three a.m. to milk or set out feed for the cows so they could be on the tractor at first light. As I sat and listened, beneath the joking and good-natured banter, beneath the complaints of low prices for beef and corn and high prices for feed and tractors, beneath all of it, I heard the song they were singing.

These men had a very large hand in creating life. These few fed many. Because of these men, and others like them, the majority of the population, myself included, could go about their daily lives without have to spend the majority of their time scavenging for food. There was something else that intrigued me about these men. It seemed as if they did not sit or stand or walk on the ground, but that the ground flowed through them. I realize that we are all apart of the earth, but with these men it was easier to see. They offered no pretense. They were blunt and honest and had little respect for an able bodied man who could not produce far more than he himself needed.

This, more than anything else made an impression on me. I am not a farmer or rancher, for I found them not to be my calling. However, I am a maker. Sometimes, I make beautiful one-of-a-kind items. Sometimes, I churn out nondescript items by the hundreds. And sometimes, when a tool bites the wood with a crisp sound. When the semi-molten steel on my anvil flows into the shape I intend. I hear the faint sound of a distant melody, and when I walk, the world walks with me.

I have baked this, wrapped it up and had it still be warm at a party 4 hours later.

No yeast. No waiting to rise-Just mix and bake.

There are certainly other ways to make soda bread, but this has worked for me for more than 30 years.
And I have never seen anybody do the steam wrap.

4 Cups whole spelt flour
2 Cups of buttermilk
1 Heaping teaspoon of baking soda
1 Heaping teaspoon of baking powder
¼ Cup or so of sugar
¼ Cup or so of caraway seeds
Handful or so of (dried cranberries/currants/blueberries-pick one, all or not)

Seems to me, the spelt gives it a more cohesive, even structure than wheat.

Mix dry ingredients
Mix in fruit (or not)
Mix in buttermilk ( I use big heavy plastic spoon)

Once it is mixed as well as you can with spoon mix with your hand. Add flour to reduce stickiness but not too much. This is kind of a mixing/ kneading step.

You want the dough to almost flow.  Form it into a ball and put on baking sheet. The ball should kind of spread on its own if it is the right consistency. Cut an X in the top to prevent cracking.

Put a cornstarch wash for shine and some sugar sprinkles on top if you want it to look like the picture-I don’t usually bother with it.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Hard crumbly crust-take out of oven let cool.
Soft chewy crust-Wrap immediately in foil and then a bath towel (careful it is really hot)

This steams the crust and makes it soft.  Leave at least an hour.

Eat it with lots of butter and honey and stuff.
Stands up to a dark, red wine and a good Stout-Guinness if you want to go all traditional but there are some other really good stouts.

If you are so inclined

It is awesome-Trust me.

(Note for all that know I have to eat gluten free. Spelt is not, I repeat not gluten free. It is a species of wheat. So don’t infer since I wrote this it is a gluten free food. IT IS NOT! I cannot actually eat this anymore. Working on a gluten free version though.)

After I was going south on 78 for a while I asked Gwendolyn to take over. I have set my GPS to a female voice and named her Gwendolyn.  She never gets upset with me (which I find quite unusual) but she is very insistent. I knew full well she would get me back to Hwy 75 the quickest way she could.

I asked her to plot a course home and the first thing out of her mouth was “Please make a legal U-turn.” She was going to take me back the way I came to Hwy 75. I ignored her knowing she would come to her senses in a short time. (This never works with any of the other females in my life.) She was quite insistent for several miles then silence (which is the usual result with all the other females in my life).  I expected her to take me to Bonham but she had other ideas. Presently she said, “Right turn in 5.4 miles.” The road listed was CR4123-PEANUT RD.  County roads are less than Farm to Market roads and more than a dirt track-a little.

So I turned right on Peanut road-then left on Kemp road-then right on I have no idea and right again on another I have no idea and so on and so on.  I passed a weathered sign that said River Bottom Jamboree Every 3^rd Saturday. Then an abandoned filling station/store right out of Bonnie and Clyde. The whole time I never saw a soul let alone another vehicle. I zoomed the display out and it showed the road continuing across the river and we were coming up on it fast.  I rounded a bend in the road and found a wide gravel turn around, a bunch of trees and the river just beyond them. Yep, I thought, I have been punished.  This is the end of the road and no way across the river.  I wondered if Gwendolyn would get me back the way I had come or if I was destined to be lost forever in the Red River bottoms.

I pulled up into the turnaround and lo and behold off to my right was a bridge-a very ollllld bridge. In fact a former railroad trestle that had been turned into a one lane bridge. It was made of big old RUSTED iron trusses.  The road across was slightly wider than my Jeep.  But a pickup truck towing an airboat was going across so I figured I could cross it as well.  So fearlessly I followed.  The fearless part lasted about 5 seconds.  The side rails were made from welded up oilfield sucker rod.  Except not all of it was there. There were great honkin’ gaps that left nothing but air between me and the river below.

All of us have primal fears. One of mine is plunging off a bridge into a river, watching the water slowly rise in the car as I sink into dark, cold depths unable to get out.  I needn’t have worried though. The fifty foot drop into the mostly dry riverbed would have splattered my brains all over the dash board. But, we made it across where another car was waiting patiently to cross the other way.

Gwendolyn took me into Denison, Texas and then on to the highway, which was running clear by that time. As I said, she never gets upset with me but I believe I have detected just hint of satisfaction in her voice since my trip across the bridge.

There is a sense of exhilaration and suspense as we maintain our soft embrace. I have learned over the years about her special spots. Some evoke a guttural sound that I can feel in the bones of my head. Some elicit a high sweet tone that borders on the unbearable and lingers on the tip of my tongue even as other sensations clamor for attention. And above all else, there is one special spot that sets all of her myriad and lovely parts vibrating at a frequency that finds a match within me. I frequent this spot rarely, adding to the suspense and the intensity.

As important as these spots are to the music it is the strokes that creates the symphony. It is the speed, pressure and length of the strokes that truly govern her response. I start slow using long languid strokes like warm honey on a summer’s eve. Heavy pressure at the start, just a whisper at the end. Then fast, short and hard until neither one of us can bear it anymore then back to the warm honey and some sense of reality. As it is so often the case in symphonies, a theme can be repeated with variations. So we explore a theme- spontaneously creating new variations, sometimes relaxing into the tried and true.
But even great symphonies do not go on forever and as one we launch into the final movement. Finesse is left behind as is sanity and even humanity. Only raw elementals remain until finally a crescendo crashes down around us. Then with a final single note of unbearable sweetness, silence envelops us and holds us in its warm embrace.

At length, I unwrap myself from her and place the cover over her, hiding her uncountable charms. I set the bow in its place and carefully close the case.

1) Approach your project with joy and anticipation.

2)Study the situation carefully

3) Have someone show you the possibilities

4) Get a feel for the situation

5) Be cautious with any first attempts

6) Anticipate a successful outcome

7) Take any temporary setbacks in stride

8) Retire to your office to rethink the project

9) Ask a trusted friend to help you look at it from a different angle

10) Consider bringing in a consultant

11) Invest in hands on training

12) Make sure all systems are working properly

13) Double check-Make a detailed inspection

14) Take pride in any initial successes

15) Bring the project to a successful completion

16) Keep a careful eye out for your competition

Thank you for your attention

I was ready to leave by 5:30. My flight was at 8:05 so that gave me about 1-1/2 hours to get to off-site parking and then to the airport an hour early.

Everything was packed and I loaded the Jeep. I made a last minute check-wallet, glasses, computer, daytimer , phone-phone, where is my phone? I could have sworn it was in my holster. Checked all the usual places- my desk-nope, Dresser-nope, kitchen table-nope Hmmm. Maybe I hit it when I loaded my suitcase and knocked it out (it has happened before). Looked all around Jeep with a flashlight-nope. 5:45 AM

Spent 5 minutes tracking down my wife’s phone. How does this thing work, how do I dial my number-okay it’s ringing. Nothing inside the house. Go outside dial it again-nothing. 5:55 AM

When all else fails retrace your steps

Okay Dan think-
Got up
Pulled on shorts

Checked e-mail
Went to make breakfast
Slipped phone into shorts pocket
THAT’S IT!

Checked wall hook in bathroom were I took shower-no shorts

Shorts, shorts, shorts

Oh yea- I packed them

Run out to Jeep open back
Open Suitcase
Find Shorts

Eureka- My phone

Lock up house-6:05

Cr—, now I will hit Dallas Rush hour traffic.

No time to go to off-site parking-will have to park at terminal.

Luckily traffic was not too bad and I got to the terminal parking at 7:00 AM. It is best to just go straight to top to find available parking.

What is this guy doing? Does he have to stop at every turn to go up-MOVE IT BUDDY!!!

Ahhh! A parking spot.

Carry everything down 5 flights of stairs.

Get into terminal 45 minutes before my flight. Great-short line at security. Get my ticket, don’t need to check a bag.

Load everything on security conveyor walk though scanner no problem. Get my trays with shoes, belt, glasses, laptop and phone. Get briefcase, load lap top back into briefcase.

Sir, I will need to inspect your bag

Perfect.

Oh well, it usually only takes a few minutes and I can put on my shoes and belt while he does it.

This guys is actually pretty funny. They always ask if you have anything sharp in your bag.

He said, “Sir, before I start my inspection do you-like- have any massive knives in your suitcase?”

Good one and he got a laugh out of me.

Pulled on my shoes and started on my belt as he went though the main compartment. I was finishing up my belt when he unzipped the thin compartment on top and pulled out a plastic pack of 3 large kitchen knives.

Life stopped

As the world froze around me and all the blood drained from my head I flashed back to six months earlier. I did not want to go to a restaurant for dinner and had stopped at a grocery store before heading to my hotel. I bought fruit, cheese, ham and bottled water. I did not have a knife and all they had was a cheap package of 4 kitchen knives. One small paring knife and 3 large knives. At the hotel I extracted the small knife, slipped the packet with the remaining knives into the top pocket of my bag and forgot all about them. That is until a TSA officer was holding them in front of me in the middle of DFW airport security.

Undoubtedly they had seen them on the scanner and he was waiting for my reaction when he pulled them from the suitcase. I am sure I will be one of the favorite stories told around the TSA break room for some time to come. He savored the moment then gently asked me if I would like to go back out and put them in my car. Realizing that I was not going to be taken into custody I regained a little of my composure and told him that I had no time to go out and he could dispose of them however he saw fit. I saw a hint of smile and he wished me a good day.

Sigh! Having a memory like a steel trap is such a curse.

P.S. I made my flight.