The voice I heard came over public television and it was Roy Underhill's
on the Woodwright Shop. (Hey! Not everybody can be born with a Stanley
#8 in his mouth!)

I saw shaving horses, mortise & tenon joints, dovcetails and all sorts
of things that looked neat but I had no idea how to make, much less the
tools to make them with. 

Then one day while visiting relatives in England we were in an antique
shop in Yorkshire and I bumped into a lovely rosewood & brass mortising
guage for about 10 bucks. SWMBO insisted I buy it - bless her!

With that guage I made a M&T workbench a la Roy's. With that bench I
could plane boards and join them together. Since it was pegged, I was
able to move it easily to NC when we left FL 10 years ago. Now the
shaving horse is out back, the draw knives hang in the garage, and
sawdust is always being tracked into the house where we keep the
furniture, bookshelves, harps, cradles, dulcimers, and other wooden
projects that I've made.

Thanks, Roy and SWMBO!

Tom in NC