Perils of the Sawdust Jungle
a memoir
In honor of National Woodworking Month, I present to you this…
The crucible of adolescence, otherwise known as middle school shop class, gifted us with indispensable survival skills. These included mastering the art of maintaining a full set of digits while tangoing with a buzz saw, and translating cryptic diagrams that bore an uncanny resemblance to ancient Egyptian wall art. The curriculum often revolved around noble professions such as woodworking and blacksmithery, but these classes were perennially on the chopping block when budget cuts came around. The reasons given? Safety concerns and high liability. It's fair enough; after all, who would want their coffers drained by litigation over a couple of hacked-off fingers?
My shop teacher, Mr. Paakanen, was a relic from the Korean War era with a trio of fingers on each hand and spectacles so thick they gave his eyes the appearance of twin sunny-side-up eggs. His breath had the distinct aroma of moonshine distilled in clandestine stills hidden in school supply closets. It remains one of life's great enigmas how we were permitted to proceed with this daily pandemonium masquerading as education.
Safety instructions were doled out like afterthoughts. But at least he tried.
"Don your, eh, safety goggles…," he advised.
Mark Seppälä assumed his coke-bottle glasses would serve until an errant wood chip decimated his right lens and rendered him monocled.
Mr. Paakanen also cautioned us against wearing loose attire or sporting untamed manes near whirling machinery, sage advice Brandy Larsen overlooked until her Rapunzel-like tresses found themselves ensnared in a belt sander, resulting in an impromptu scalping. Then there was David Andersen who discovered that varnish doubles up as an excellent esophageal cleanser... my apologies, I meant bourbon alternative.
The pinnacle of our shop class saga was constructing something monumental in 8th grade using the miraculous skills we'd somehow acquired amidst the bedlam. I crafted a bench, a feat that felt akin to clinching an Olympic gold medal, particularly when compared to Jason Erickson's lopsided chair and his unfortunate liaison with a table saw that resulted in some, let's say, notable anatomical crotch revisions.
In spite of the ever-looming specter of mutilation, shop class did bestow upon us some invaluable life lessons, live each day as if it were your last. I emerged triumphant and wholly intact. I wisely abstained from tempting fate by enrolling in shop class post-8th grade. Surviving one round in a piranha-infested lagoon seemed sufficient. And Jason Erickson, he’s now Jasmine, headlining on Sunday afternoons at the Manhole Tavern in Palm Springs.