rod
~ Elite 1000 Member ~
Dear Colleagues,
After too long an absence, this is me quietly slipping onto the Forum, getting back into the habit of participating in this friendly and generous meeting ground of engravers.
I do owe you a short explanation for my absence.
Starting on January 1st, the year 2015 has not been an easy one for me. A very bad winter bug devolved into a chronic cough that simply would not let up until July. I know many winter bug victims had long coughing bouts, but this one was relentless. and was at full strength when FEGA Vegas 2015 was held. I very much missed being with colleagues and friends last January, and very much appreciated a card that Katherine Plumer passed around, signed by many friends, all wishing me the best, thank you!
I got another big lift in my spirits, when Rick Thronburg, of William Henry Knives, sent me a precious gift, the new book of American Engravers. It was a personal delight to thumb through it and discover that Roger B had included one of my silver pendants with gilded flare cut. I found myself holding mixed reactions of wanting to beat my chest with pride, at the same time feeling a certain embarrassment in appearing in the same volume with so many illustrious true engraving artists! Thank you so much, Roger!
Many tests to determine the cause of my chronic cough gave no definite results. Some fasting and strict dieting appeared to slightly improve my condition with a good side effect. I dropped about 15 pounds in weight, and am pretty well keeping it off and hoping to trim down more.
Thinking that the way was clear for me to be back in the saddle, with the cough abated, I completed an order for some flutes and piccolo which went to the Opera House in Manaus, Brazil, half way up the Amazon River. The players there appear to like my work.
Never a dull moment, next on the menu was to have a bad accident in my workshop.
I broke my left forearm, mashed my left hand tenons badly, also tenons and elbow damage to my right arm.
I called for help, then fainted, falling like timber to smash my skull on concrete, opening up a nasty wound. First responders, our town Volunteer Fire Department were by my side in moments, thanks to my wife’s quick response, I spent 8 hours in the hospital Emergency. Thanks to low intelligence and a thick Scottish skull, my brain somehow survived the blow, even with the nurses telling me, just to cheer me up, they could lift my scalp and see my skull. The hospital staff were all very good, and sent me home that evening to be cared for by my loving wife. For a while I was looking like Frankenstein. Viewed weeks later by the usual suspects started calling me Frankenstein at the bakery coffee shop, all done up in a cast to my armpit, and wearing a wool cap to hide my head. As wounds heal, yet scars remain, now they concede I look more like Frankenstein’s little brother.
The clean fracture of the forearm is on its way to healing up, my hand tenons may yet take many months before I can hold down a G chord on the guitar, so I work daily to flex and strengthen all of these, in fact, the bone doctor encourages me to be back in my shop, at the lathe to get arm activity without overdoing it …..use it, or lose it…is the advice for a 78 year old. I have hired a buddy to do my bidding in the shop, and quite enjoy barking out orders for him to carry out. He has worked with me in the past. So together we work to reorganized my shop. No flute making as yet, as I cannot hold the flute to test or tune it, but I have done a lot to my bowl turning lathe design and improvement.
As the fracture heals, it reveals my left shoulder to now be my main handicap. Inactivity is the happy hunting ground for calcium growth and other degrades. An MRI shows three separate issues. Age is always a factor at 78, cutting me up holds little promise, so I will take a conservative approach and see what I can do on my own to bring back some more useful movement.
Okay, then, oops… the eye doctor tells me that a fast developing cloudiness in my lifetime of good vision means that cataracts are clouding the vision, so I will do one eye surgery at a time, starting in ten days.
On the positive side of life, I made a design change at my engraving bench which allows my limited finger movements to rotate the turn table with confidence, so I look forward to engraving soon.
Inactivity has greatly opened my awareness and compassion for those many poor souls around the planet who must spend a lifetime with various handicaps, not to mention other poor souls who must bring forth more courage in their life daily, labouring to support a family in poverty, more courage than I might ever be called upon to deliver in my finest hour. Life is neither fair, nor is it an art form, often it is a series of speed bumps we must somehow get over in order to get on with it.
It is my intention to be in Las Vegas next January, and in the meantime, as time goes by, I will add a word or two on this friendly and supportive Forum.
Every good wish!
Rod
After too long an absence, this is me quietly slipping onto the Forum, getting back into the habit of participating in this friendly and generous meeting ground of engravers.
I do owe you a short explanation for my absence.
Starting on January 1st, the year 2015 has not been an easy one for me. A very bad winter bug devolved into a chronic cough that simply would not let up until July. I know many winter bug victims had long coughing bouts, but this one was relentless. and was at full strength when FEGA Vegas 2015 was held. I very much missed being with colleagues and friends last January, and very much appreciated a card that Katherine Plumer passed around, signed by many friends, all wishing me the best, thank you!
I got another big lift in my spirits, when Rick Thronburg, of William Henry Knives, sent me a precious gift, the new book of American Engravers. It was a personal delight to thumb through it and discover that Roger B had included one of my silver pendants with gilded flare cut. I found myself holding mixed reactions of wanting to beat my chest with pride, at the same time feeling a certain embarrassment in appearing in the same volume with so many illustrious true engraving artists! Thank you so much, Roger!
Many tests to determine the cause of my chronic cough gave no definite results. Some fasting and strict dieting appeared to slightly improve my condition with a good side effect. I dropped about 15 pounds in weight, and am pretty well keeping it off and hoping to trim down more.
Thinking that the way was clear for me to be back in the saddle, with the cough abated, I completed an order for some flutes and piccolo which went to the Opera House in Manaus, Brazil, half way up the Amazon River. The players there appear to like my work.
Never a dull moment, next on the menu was to have a bad accident in my workshop.
I broke my left forearm, mashed my left hand tenons badly, also tenons and elbow damage to my right arm.
I called for help, then fainted, falling like timber to smash my skull on concrete, opening up a nasty wound. First responders, our town Volunteer Fire Department were by my side in moments, thanks to my wife’s quick response, I spent 8 hours in the hospital Emergency. Thanks to low intelligence and a thick Scottish skull, my brain somehow survived the blow, even with the nurses telling me, just to cheer me up, they could lift my scalp and see my skull. The hospital staff were all very good, and sent me home that evening to be cared for by my loving wife. For a while I was looking like Frankenstein. Viewed weeks later by the usual suspects started calling me Frankenstein at the bakery coffee shop, all done up in a cast to my armpit, and wearing a wool cap to hide my head. As wounds heal, yet scars remain, now they concede I look more like Frankenstein’s little brother.
The clean fracture of the forearm is on its way to healing up, my hand tenons may yet take many months before I can hold down a G chord on the guitar, so I work daily to flex and strengthen all of these, in fact, the bone doctor encourages me to be back in my shop, at the lathe to get arm activity without overdoing it …..use it, or lose it…is the advice for a 78 year old. I have hired a buddy to do my bidding in the shop, and quite enjoy barking out orders for him to carry out. He has worked with me in the past. So together we work to reorganized my shop. No flute making as yet, as I cannot hold the flute to test or tune it, but I have done a lot to my bowl turning lathe design and improvement.
As the fracture heals, it reveals my left shoulder to now be my main handicap. Inactivity is the happy hunting ground for calcium growth and other degrades. An MRI shows three separate issues. Age is always a factor at 78, cutting me up holds little promise, so I will take a conservative approach and see what I can do on my own to bring back some more useful movement.
Okay, then, oops… the eye doctor tells me that a fast developing cloudiness in my lifetime of good vision means that cataracts are clouding the vision, so I will do one eye surgery at a time, starting in ten days.
On the positive side of life, I made a design change at my engraving bench which allows my limited finger movements to rotate the turn table with confidence, so I look forward to engraving soon.
Inactivity has greatly opened my awareness and compassion for those many poor souls around the planet who must spend a lifetime with various handicaps, not to mention other poor souls who must bring forth more courage in their life daily, labouring to support a family in poverty, more courage than I might ever be called upon to deliver in my finest hour. Life is neither fair, nor is it an art form, often it is a series of speed bumps we must somehow get over in order to get on with it.
It is my intention to be in Las Vegas next January, and in the meantime, as time goes by, I will add a word or two on this friendly and supportive Forum.
Every good wish!
Rod
Last edited:
