03/07/2025
"You can see more with your hands than you can with your eyes, your eyes just tell you where to look"
I'm gonna guess I was about 9 or 10 when my uncle Daniel told me that- I certainly didn't truly understand it then. To recreate the experience of that memory, I'll tell you that he trusted me with a sanding pad on his 54 caliber flintlock Kentucky long r***e. He handmade most of the metal parts with nothing more than a forge and a file. I distinctly recall that I was tasked with sanding out the marks from "when he got a little carried away with the rasp" (I know now that it was all part of the process and that he was just simply exaggerating for my benefit). However there's rarely a time that I'm in a sanding 'trance' that I don't think about those days just a little. Possibly more when I add in the smell of that hard maple.
There are many people that'd describe that man as not a great guy - but truly he taught me a lot and was one of many men that stepped up and taught me important stuff, stuff that's still in my 'toolbox' to this day!
