Halloween Town Dreams

From St. Helens, Oregon

Oct 11, 2024

I dream of the old wooden boat I once owned in the days when I lived on Atwood Lake. It was seven miles of serene water in middle Ohio and it was the perfect place for a young boy to be raised. I was fourteen when this beautiful 1948 Dunphy Speedster was put in the local paper for $75. That was the day my love for woodworking was born. Sadly no pictures of the boat exist, but I was crazy about that thing, I kept it in top shape and was always trying to make it go as fast as that little Evinrude outboard motor could push it.

Fast-forward over fifty years and I still miss that boat. I dream a lot when I’m in my woodshop as I have much time to think, to reflect. My thoughts go from what I’m doing at that very moment, to all the years gone by, to my anticipating of what may lie ahead. I think of how time has gone streaking by like a shooting star with its brilliant trail glimmering for a precious moment before it fades away, my emotions glad for the experience yet lamenting its brevity.

Still I dream. To be sure, I have distractions like podcasts and music, but there are moments of solitude where I wonder if my years were well lived. I ponder whether I have learned anything besides how to make a good mortise and tenon joint or the most maddeningly delicious mac & cheese you ever had.

But in the end of this long winding thread I’ve woven through life, what remains after my saws run silent, after my squares and jigs have been picked up by another, what will remain? What sort of tapestry have I created? Indeed the material world doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when the evening comes compared with the impact I may have made in the lives of others. But still, especially now that it is autumn, I sometimes think of the absurd, if not macabre, so I thought about the below project. I’m also short on material since I ran my old computer through reboot camp.

I did a short mention of this commission a couple years ago but never said much about the details. To those who are unaware, I reside in St. Helens, Oregon, which is now the official “Halloween Town” made famous by some movie I’ve never seen. Since we are now into the Halloween season (it used to be just a day, now it is all of October), it is time to raise the dead or something like that. I don’t know, I’m only in it for the sweets, but this was a commission for Real-Eye-Zing tattoo in spookyville.

I started at a website that offers free casket plans that print out on one sheet, including a materials list! Once I figured in the necessary parts to convert it into a shelving unit, all I needed was six 1” X 12” X 8’ pine boards, glue, nails, primer and paint.