[Patrick asks us to write of the voices we heard...]

[And Paddy jumped on those]
>WHO HAVE NEVER POSTED A BIO!!

	I did, but it weren't much.  Lessee now....
	In fifth grade, in a two room school out west of Bakersfield, the
county Ed Dept. sent a Shop Truck, complete with teacher, around to the
country schools, Sort of like a BookMobile.  So for half a day, once a
week, we had shop.  This was, um, somewhere in the middle 1950s.  No power
tools allowed--too dangerous, they said.  So we made the requisite plywood
knick-knack shelf and pine pig-shaped cutting board with coping saw, rasp,
and sandpaper.  Lots of sandpaper. Brace and bits and hand saws, but no
planes, no chisels, no shaves.  Come to think of it, nothing with a blade
that needed regular sharpening.  As I think on it now, *that's* what was
lost in the transition to the modern age.  Not so much the advant of power
(some version of power has been used in production settings since the
industrial revolution), but the loss of skill in and concern for tool
maintenance and sharpening.  I thank this list for getting me into that.
Maybe too far into it, as I've just about concluded that my hobby is not so
much "hand tool WW" as "old tool restoration."  But that's OK--it's a hobby.
	My dad was never much of a detail guy, except with leather, to keep
his equipment in shape.  He was a cowboy, mostly, and depended on his tack
to get him through the day.  He taught himself to weld, and we did the
usual survival carpentry, (and building fence, with fence tools!) but no
real WW.  As an extension from the Shop Truck experience an uncle helped me
design and build a set of bookshelves, with dados for the shelves cut with
handsaw, and a funky huge ogee detail at the top, when I was 11.  No
dimensioning needed--we just took the nominal 1 x 10 clear mahogany boards
out of the stack in the shed behind the school, and used them as they came.
Pukey duck wall shelf and cutting board long gone, but I'm sitting here
looking across the room at those bookshelves.  A little big to be buried
with, but maybe part of the coffin...
	A couple of years after that I found myself in a different school
with regular shop for boys and home Ec. for girls.  Can't remember much
about what we made, but ol' Mr. Royer taught us how to draw plans.  I still
sketch out plans pretty much like Mr. Royer insisted we do, before starting
work.  Thanks, Mr. Royer.
	Nuff for now,
		Tom Holloway,
thinking about a lot of years in between with *no* WW to speak of....