The workshop

He was 90 years of age when he died last week. With a friend, I helped look after him and his wife. They had outlived most friends and family.

After driving his widow to the funeral, I took her to lunch and then home. She asked if I would fix a couple things in the basement. She said tools were in the adjoining garage.

The first thing to grab my attention was the smell. It penetrated my memories as much as my olfactory senses. A heady mixture of old oil, solvents and adhesives.

The bench was a massive construction of heavy wood, bearing the gouges, burns and other scars of projects completed long ago. A large vise was mounted on one end, carrying a patina of rust and dust. At the other end stood an archaic belt driven table saw.

There was no pegboard behind it. Just a sheet of plywood with nails to support an assortment of hand tools. Like the vise, they showed no signs of recent use.

Nary a power tool among them. Anything with moving parts was driven by a hand crank. Most of the handles were wood, stained with the sweat of hundreds of jobs. Likewise, the clamps were wooden. The assortment included a spokeshave, drilling brace, draw knife, spiral screwdriver, non-electric soldering iron and a dozen other devices I couldn’t name.

A horizontal plank was mounted on top of this. On it roosted oil cans (the kind you used by depressing the bottom, from which we derive the term “oilcanning”), turpentine, kerosene, shellac, naval jelly and an assortment of other potions. Under it, were jars mounted by a screw through the lid. They contained a dizzying array of fasteners and unidentifiable components salvaged from God knows what.

I had been in this workshop a hundred times before. Not this one, but ones just like it an age ago. The memories came flooding back.

It was everything I recalled from my youth. I scanned the walls, drinking it all in. Wait, I stand corrected on the “everything.” There it was. The pinup calendar. Any bona fide workshop had to have one. I took the time to authenticate it. Yes, 1959 was a good year.