January 07 2008, 08:48 PM Tooling

When I was much younger, I would tune the little radio I had to the local sports AM station and listen to the broadcasts of the hockey games, played in the little arena for a little market in the middle of terrible forces both West and East. I have ever since had great respect and esteem for listening to sporting events on the airwaves. In happier times more recent, when my life had a large TV and a proper pile of speakers, we would dial up the games on the television but leave over the speakers to the radio, the local voices better to tell us what it was we were seeing (and sometimes just a moment early - a confusing thing, but not a bad thing). I have radios all over the place, but none yet in the room with the little screen. I need to fix that.

The other way I sometimes like to listen to the games is by walking around. Put a radio in the ear, toss on a scarf, and start walking streets, keeping an ear turned outward for the hoots and moans that pour from the lighted windows. I will not be able to listen to any more games of the local favorites in this way, this season. This is somewhat unfortunate.

I am making stately progress in the basement; I am wandering through the landscape of joinery, stomping downstairs to practice making dovetails in the ends of good stout pieces of scrap oak. The saws sing through the wood, the chisels are sharp enough to part liquid. The bin fills slowly with sawdust. It says something to slide together two pieces of wood and have them stick and hold, firm in their commitment. It says something, too, that they do this in spite of the lack of accuracy that always seems to slip into the work, somehow.

I'm getting better at it. This is what the practice is for.