This causes me to stop and wonder , WTF was I doing when they were learning all this stuff ? Probably day drinking at the Hot Club .
LESSON ONE : MASTERING THE ELEMENTS
My life skills education begins at , well , if not the beginning , at least pretty close to it . Working with metals is one of humanity ’ s oldest and most elemental crafts , predating even writing . Although blacksmithing is no longer an essential skill for most people in an industrialized world — even if we ’ re embroiled in another conflict that requires nationwide mobilization on par with World War II , your average citizen will not literally be beating plowshares back into swords — there is a primal appeal to mastering the elements . Plus , the combination of fire and metal is always cool , as evidenced by any number of 1980s hard rock videos .
A friend from high school , Eric , is a UPS driver by day and an amateur blacksmith in his spare time . Like most people , he has no real need to forge an ax , but he seems to enjoy doing so . After taking an introductory class at the Steel Yard a few years back , he ’ s been hooked ever since . There ’ s scarcely a person in his life who does not own a bottle opener made from a recovered railroad spike . He turned half his garage into a small blacksmith shop he dubbed Wrought Island Forge .
Working from a makeshift forge designed for him by another local blacksmith , consisting of a rolling cart , some fire-resistant bricks and a propane burner , Eric has been turning out an increasingly ambitious set of tools . Starting from a fireplace poker , a common introductory project for first-time blacksmiths , he has advanced to various knives , hooks , cleavers , axes and small kitchen items .
The day before I go to his house , he texts : “ Make sure to not wear any synthetic fabrics or open-toed shoes ,” spoiling my plans to wear a Lycra bodysuit and flip-flops . I am not sure what to expect , but that warning gives me thoughts of big , heavy gloves , welding masks , and me standing off to the side holding Eric ’ s beer as he bends the elements to his will .
Quite the contrary . No heavy gear is required , and after a few commonsense safety guidelines ( red metal = HOT ), I ’ m able to get hands-on . In just a couple of hours , I go from knowing only that blacksmithing involves metal , fire and hammers to exploring the many ways an anvil can be used to manipulate metal . Rather than just hammering things against them or dropping them out windows onto cartoon characters , they can be used to flatten , bend , curve , sharpen , spin and pinch metal , every inch of their surface suited to a different task .
In less time than it takes to watch the six-episode season of
“ I OFTEN JOKE THAT IF I HOSTED AN HGTV-STYLE HOME IMPROVEMENT SHOW , IT WOULD BE CALLED ‘ WE ’ LL JUST LEARN TO LIVE WITH THAT .’” – JOHN TARABORELLI
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“ Metal Shop Masters ” on Netflix , I can shape , twist , bend and punch holes in metal , crafting a — you guessed it — poker for my fire pit .
Am I ready to start forging tools ? Certainly not , but I emerge with at least a basic grasp of a craft that a mere two hours before was a complete mystery to me .
Lesson one : Maybe this stuff isn ’ t as hard as I imagined it to be .
LESSON TWO : IMPROVING THE HOME
The next lesson is the most daunting — not because it seems so overwhelmingly difficult , but because it ’ s the one that ’ s most important to my daily life : home improvement .
I often joke that if I hosted an HGTV-style home improvement show , it would be called “ We ’ ll Just Learn to Live with That .” In each episode , I would be presented with a relatively minor problem and rather than fixing it , I would demonstrate how to adjust my daily habits around it . Toilet keeps running ? Just jiggle the handle a little . Faulty light switch ? Put a lamp in that corner . Plaster on that wall is bubbling and cracking ? Move the couch in front of it . ( That one is a real-life example from the most recent episode .)
It ’ s time to take inspiration from Vanilla Ice (“ If there was a problem , yo , I ’ ll solve it ”). But where to start ?
My wife has long wanted to move the light fixture in our dining room so that it ’ s centered over the table . The project is realistic enough for even a dolt like me to complete in a day , yet involves multiple tasks , skills and tools .
Of course , I need a Mr . Miyagi to my Daniel-san . I have no shortage of options : a father-in-law who ’ s a retired carpenter , a good friend who renovated his house from the studs , another friend in the building trades whose ideal weekend involves a good home improvement project . So , naturally I choose my mother-in-law , Gayle , a recently retired art professor .
She might seem an unorthodox choice , but she ’ s genuinely one of the most resourceful people I know . She grew up one of eight siblings in the woods in Foster , in a house her family built by hand . She worked for a freelance handyman service that was kind of like a pre-internet TaskRabbit . And she lives in a grand old house outside Boston where something always needs doing or fixing . Once , she asked for my assistance assembling a modular shed . I arrived to find that she didn ’ t need help so much as simple brawn to lift pieces into place ; she had already built , alone and by hand , a terraced wooden platform on which the shed would stand .
On a Saturday morning we get to work . This is not to be a beer-holding , flashlight-pointing , “ stand back and watch , kid ” kind of apprenticeship . Gayle provides the know-how , most of the tools and supplies , and most importantly , the direction , but I am going to do the work .
58 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l JUNE 2022