A letter to the person who owns this desk next.

So, I  recently built a desk that will no doubt be my forever desk.  Then I thought, at some point, someone else will own the thing.  That got me to thinking about telling that person the story of how this desk came to be and why it is like it is.  I decided to write a letter to the person who will someday have this desk, here is that letter.

I see you decided to see what was in that compartment.  I made that compartment for no other reason than to hold this note, and occasionally hide cash from my Bride.

My name is Duane Smith and the idea for this desk got started after my first week of working at home during the COVID19 pandemic.  I am unsure when someone may read this but right now is an unprecedented time in History.  

I am the currently the Chief Technology Officer for OPB, Oregon Public Broadcasting, and on March 13, 2020 we shifted to about 200 of our staff to working remotely.  This preceding Governor Kate Brown’s stay at home order, which came out about a week later.  I was in the first test group for remote working.  I was thankful that we had recently paid to have broadband internet brought up to our home.  Before we had half of a DSL, 2.8mbs was a fast speed day for me and after, we had 1gig speeds, worth every penny of the $2,800 it cost to have them trench it up to our house. 

After the first week of working from home I realized that the desk I had in my home office was WHOLLY inadequate for me to actually work from home.  It was a 40-year-old Piece Of Shit that I bought from Goodwill probably 20 years ago.  It is tiny and has very little space for my legs to fit under.  I have a sit stand desk at work has a larger work surface and provides way more space underneath.  I also learned that the chair I had was also a POS, so I went to the office at 7140 sw Macadam in Portland and grabbed my office chair.

That is when I started thinking about a new desk.  I started looking around and did not see anything that I really liked that I could afford.  I started thinking about a sit stand desk.  Again, did not really find anything I liked.  Then it dawned on me, I could build my own desk, but what kind.  My mind for some reason immediately went to a big live edge slab sit stand desk.  Something that had a crotch in it.  I could almost see what it would look like from the moment the idea popped into my head.

But, I had never worked with a live edge, or a big slab of any kind.  I had never used epoxy and I suspected I would need to use that.  I have been impressed with some of the river tables and other projects I have seen where the use of colored epoxies was prominent.  I did not want that level of contrast because that whole thing feels a little like a fad to me.  I think those things are super cool looking, I just am not sure that will still be cool in 10-20 years.    

So, I started studying how to work with large slabs, specifically Walnut, which is what I first saw in my mind, not sure what but that’s what I saw.  I can only recall one project I have ever used Walnut and that was a pair of ashtrays that I ended up giving to my sister back in the late 70’s, not for smoking cigarettes. 

The first big challenge, where the hell would I buy a giant chunk of walnut.  I asked friends, searched on the hardware store bulletin board, Criagslist and Facebook Marketplace.  I found a guy named Eric who had a ton of giant slabs for really good prices.  All his slabs were green, within a year of felling.  Back to the research, how do ya dry these giant slabs out.  OK, all I have to find a place to kiln dry it for me, I live in the great PNW, I thought this won’t be a problem at all. 

I found a company that charged by the board foot, AJ Kiln Drying.  He indicated that a slab that big and 3 inches thick would need to be air dried for at least 3 years before it could go in the kiln, or it would warp and twist up to the point of ruining the slab.  Great, I did not want to wait three years.  I asked him if he knew of anyone who had slabs that were at least 3 years air dried. 

A. J. pointed me in the direction of the Maverick Sawmill and the owner, a man named Nick Mooers located in Hubbard Oregon.  I reached out to him and explained what I was looking for.  He told me that he had thousands of slabs and was 100% sure he had something that fit my requirements.  He said he would pull some out and line them up for me and I could come take a look.  A few days later I traveled to see and while I wished I could have bought them all, I selected this one. 

 It was 3 inches thick and did not look entirely flat.  I thought, no biggy, I could mill that down flat and then parallel it.  I asked him if they did that sort of work, to which he said yes we have a big CNC machine that makes short work of it.  I asked what that cost to have done, he told me that if we could agree on a price right then he would do it at no charge, we did, and he did.  I picked it up about 4 days later, milled smoothly down to about 2 inches thick.

Since I do not have my shop built and have my 58 Ford Ranchero and 63 Galaxie 500 convertible in my garage I had to commandeer my Wife’s garage.  I built a carpet covered fold up rack that allowed me to work on it and then fold it up with the slab and she could park her car in there.  Bride was not happy about losing her side of the garage for a bit.

The first week I spent sitting in a chair staring at the slab, waiting for it to tell me what it wanted to be.  I kept coming back to the broken edge, that was probably created when the tree was felled.  I first spent time trying to figure out how to cut it out or minimize it best I could.  I realized that I should not try to do that.  Primarily because the broken piece, while not what I wanted, was what it was.  

That got me to thinking, it has to stay.  This is not a dimensioned lumber project where I was striving to make everything as close to perfect as I could.  I decided I had to honor the slab for what it was, not what I wanted it to be.  I suppose that is true for all work on larger slabs.  That was a revelation that helped with the rest of the design and build.

So, I spent more time staring at it through that lens.  As I thought about it, I began to realize that I needed to highlight the damage and figure out a way to use that to tell a story. I know, I am such a nerd given to sentimentality.  I could have easily just whipped something together but for some reason I wanted to make this desk into something special.  Special because I had never built myself and desk and will most likely never build another for myself.

I cannot recall which day it was, but it dawned on me, maybe this can be a story about my own life.  Those areas from my youth that were broken, broken mostly because of my own dumbassedness.  Then I realized I could incorporate pieces from my past, emotional ties to those who helped provide the guidance, direction and structure that has led me to who I am today.  So that had to include a number of things, my parents, my Grandmother (Granny) and many of the influential folks along my life’s journey.

As a somewhat sentimental person, I have kept trinkets and items over the years from folks who were important to me.  I have items from my parents, who both passed in 2009 and from Granny.  I have items from friends and mentors spanning back over my most of my life that have meaning to me.  The thought dawned on me, what if I could somehow incorporate some of these mementos into this desk, as a reminder about how I got to where I am today. 

I thought, great, I have a direction!  I started thinking about each area that had sustained some sort of damage, some may call them flaws but at this point I stopped thinking about them in that context.  I started looking at each one as an opportunity to tell a piece of my story.  How could I bring my past into this thing in a way that told my story, I had no idea at this early stage but knew that which each spot, the answer would eventually present itself to me.

Time to start thinking about what kind of actual desk this slab would sit on.  I really like my sit/stand desk I had at work.  I started researching the mechanisms.  The old interwebs, as usual, gave me too many choices, ranging from absolute crap to some high dollar setups.  I knew I did not want a piece of crap and was nervous spending a ton of money on the more expensive ones without knowing for sure they were high quality units.

I read so many reviews that my head was spinning, everything in the world has good and bad reviews and sometimes it is hard to determine which are bullshit and which are not.

I started considering using a company that we had recently used at work for sit stand radio and TV studio furniture.  This made me nervous as I did not want any conflicts of interest, especially since my company recently spent over $200,000 with this company for studio furniture.  I spoke to our CFO and CEO and explained what I wanted to do and got their guidance on how to keep all that above board.

I reached out to Alan Martin of Martin and Zeigler, headquartered over in Canby Oregon.  I explained my concerns about conflicts of interest.  He laughed and said you’ve already paid me, why would I do you any favors the furniture I just sold ya will last 20 year or more.  We had a good laugh and went through my other concerns about conflicts.  He is my age and started that company when he was in his 20’s. 

I laid out what I was looking for and he gave me a neighborhood for the costs.  He would need the weight and exact size in order to give me a hard quote.  I weighed it, 146.5 pounds and took some craft paper and cut it out the exact size of the slab and sent it to him. 

He came back with a price, that showed ZERO favor based on our professional relationship, I agreed, and he started building the mechanism.  The systems we put in at work were top notch, smooth in operation and super quiet.  And just so you know, the sit stand mechanisms cost me more than the slab.  Ok, with that I had what I was building roughed out, it was time to get cracking.

The first work I did on the slab was to start working on the bark.  My research told me there are many ways to do that from grinders with specialized blades to pressure washing it off.   I did not like the idea of grinding, I wanted to preserve as much of the live edge as possible.  I also did not like the idea of firing up the pressure washer either, I have been opposed to using a pressure washer on any wood, even decks, let alone this slab of walnut. 

I decided I would take the slow route, scrapers, and putty knives along with hand sanding.  It took me over 15 hours to get the bark off and get the live edge roughed in to where I liked it.  I am glad I took the time, I am afraid that some details would have been lost using those more aggressive methods.  There would be much more sanding to come as I progress through the various grits, all the way to 800 – which I know is overkill but I wanted this desk to be as close to perfect as I could get it!

Next, I spend a lot of time sanding.  I started out using my 30-year-old Craftsman belt sander starting at 80 through 150 grit on the bottom.  Then I moved to my little Ryobi random orbital sander from 100 through 180.  That POS ragged out pretty quick, so I purchased a DeWalt variable speed orbital sander and continued the work.   I know I had more to do but that was close enough for me to start experimenting, with finishes, with the epoxy and with the Dutchman joints.

I researched epoxies, colorants and how to do that work.  I played a bit with the areas on the bottom with all things.  I tried what was called purple but came out as blue, you can see that on the bottom.  I also tried a brown that I really liked but, in the end, settled on the black for the top. Here are the tests I did of the purple

I trimmed the three end grains.  I trimmed as little as possible, just enough to get to a nice clean straight edge with all the chain saw marks removed.  This was the only sawing I did on the slab.  I also started experimenting with how I would finish this thing.  I really wanted to keep it as natural as possible.  I tried a few things, I really liked Watco’s dark walnut Danish oil for the looks. 

The only issue with Danish oil is that it requires maintenance and I am lazy and did not want to be reapplying Danish oil every year so, it required more experimentation.  I tried water and oil urethanes of various sheens.  I finally settled on Watco dark walnut Danish oil with a super thinned down satin oil urethane, commonly referred to as wiping poly.    

I cleaned up the cracks and established where I wanted to put those bow ties first, three made of wood in total.  Since I had never done one before I thought I would start on the bottom.  I was somewhat disappointed with my first attempt, I did not spend any time ensuring my chisels were sharpened and honed.  There were small gaps, most likely no one would ever even notice but I wasn’t happy with it.  I spent a few hours sharpening them up and practiced more on some scraps.  Each of those are about 5/8” thick.

Just a note on the joints themselves, the dutchman, the bowtie or as I prefer, the Nakashima joints, named after George Katsutoshi Nakashima.  He was American woodworker who was a renowned woodworker, he actually accepted the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1983.  An honor bestowed by the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government.  Anyway, he was the first to truly use a dutchman or bowtie in a way that elevated aesthetics over the simple function of a dutchman or bowtie joints.

There are two different woods, one mahogany and two from curly maple.   There are also two aluminum ones on the bottom.   Each has a story that makes it important to me. 

Each has significant meaning to me but the mahogany is especially dear to my heart.  Back in the 90’s my great friend Evelyn McNurlan and I were building a dinner room table and chairs out of mahogany.  It was a Saturday and we had wrapped up for the day and she went on home for the day, to  soak in the tub  She died of a heart attack in her tub, she was in her early 30’s.  I was thunderstruck! 

While she was not the first person I had lost in my life, she was the first really close friend, I was in my late 20’s.  Since we were working on this project in my shop when I lived in Jacksonville Florida, I just kept all the wood.  I never finished the table or even one of the chairs, I just could not bring myself to do it.  Over the years I had incorporated little pieces of that mahogany into furniture I built, for me and my wife, for friends and other folks. I never told anyone the meaning of the wood in their projects.  The largest of those was a nightstand for my wife.

The mahogany bowtie is from that wood I have kept around in the shop through all the moves and over nearly 30 years.  It is very special and is there to honor my friend Evelyn, her name is written on the bottom side, which will never be seen.

The maple pieces are from some bits I got from my great friend John Wesley, who passed in the early 2000’s from COPD.  He was a great guy and I miss him a lot.  We tried out the turkey frying craze way back in the day, me, John and one of my best friends Mark – it was Yummy.  He was quite a bit older than me, we met through our wives who met at Dog Club.  We had a great many adventure and he was a really interesting man. One of the things about John was that if he had one of something, he had three of them.  From tools, to firearms to you freaking name it, he had more than one of them.  I have held onto those little bits of Maple all this time and have built a few things out it, a pencil box for my wife is my favorite.   His name is written on the bottom of those as well, never to be seen.

The Aluminum ones in the bottom are from some bits I got when my neighbor Alva Robertson cleaned out his shed once.  He was a great neighbor for me back when I was a brand-new first-time homeowner at the time.  He was influential in that he led by example, and his example was a damn good one in every aspect I can think of measuring.  I got those bits of aluminum back in the 1990’s and was sure I would find a use for them someday.   He has passed as well.

The lid for secret compartment also has a very special meaning for me.  I got the remnants of a coffee table from a man named Don Brady, this piece was in the exact middle of that table.  I cut that down and thinned it out to work in this application.   I first met Don Brady when I was 11 years old while delivering newspapers.  We remained friends until he passed in 1992.  

Don Brady was a once in a lifetime friend, mentor and all around AWESOME human being.  He had a large impact on my life.  As  someone who lacked a father figure and I learned a great many life lessons from him.  My own father was pretty non existent in my life and my stepfather and my young self, we did not get along AT ALL, we did later in life but that change was very slow, over a decade.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved my Dad but he was just not there for us when we were kids.

I also used a couple of other bits and pieces inside the secret compartment.  One of those was this little bit of maple from one of my Brothers' from another Mother Phil. This picture was snapped on a work trip to Atlanta right before the COVID isolation began.

All those pieces are situated in a way to hold things together or hold things in general, that is by design.  When I think about those pieces, they represent people who have helped me along in my journey through life.  They each offered examples of how to operate in life that helped me become the person I am today.  I just love Evelyn, she was just a bubbly positive person in the face of a challenging life.

I wanted to also explain a couple of other components I incorporated into the build, around that broken edge.  As I mentioned my childhood was not without adversity and I would not change one bit of it.  I hear people wishing they could go back to their youth and change things, not me.  I am where 

I am in life because of that adversity, it helped form who I am.   

The little turquois and silver bird came off a lighter case.  Way back in the day, late 70’s, my late aunt Sue traveled to the southwest and purchased a few trinkets for folks.  She got one for my Dad and one for Granny.  It was basically glued to the side of metal tube that held a disposable Bic lighter. 

I would not even be able to venture a guess as to how many disposable lighters that were cycled through that case, Granny smoked a lot.   My Dad had both his and Granny’s and when he passed, I kept a few of his things, that was one of them.

Granny was the most influential person in my life.  Parthenia Geraldine Dempsey Baily Smith Watson, had the largest impact on my younger self than ANYONE else in my life to date.  After my folks divorced, I stayed with my Mom until she made me choose between her and him, a 22 rifle was at the heart of that.  I stayed with Dad and then Dad and Granny until I joined the Navy in 1983.  She was one who would tell ya exactly how she saw it, regardless when or where or who might be around. 

She once called my girlfriend, whom she did not approve of, a twiddle twat, right to her face.  Haahaha, that was a pretty embarrassing moment for me at age 16, she was right but to hear it out loud hurt a bit.   She also tolerated my dumbassedness and let me learn so many things the hard way, because she understood that was the way I learned.  She tolerated my underage drinking, my smoking pot and all the other dumb ass shit I put her through.  She could see me learning in real time with an awful lot of extremely painful lessons.  So many of those lessons are still in me, learning things about life that way makes them stick with ya and become who ya are in this world.

There has not been a day goes by that I don’t think about her, she was such an authentic soul, there was absolutely zero bullshit in her world, she had no tolerance for it.  She could tell when I was lying before I even opened my mouth and would say bullshit! Hahaha, it makes me laugh remembering her in those moments. 

I remember once coming home at like 11 or 12 at night stoned out of my head and I convinced her somehow to make me French toast, which hers was the best on the planet.  She also made the syrup, although I have no idea what she used or how she did it.   She not only made me French toast, she ended up making me a whole damn loaf of bread worth of French toast because I had the raging munchies.  So much of who I am today I can trace back to things I learned from her, either by her directly telling me so or by her allowing me to learn it the hard way or by her sometimes unorthodox examples.  She was my best friend and I loved her A LOT and miss her dearly. 

Also over there are a wooden token from my Dad’s favorite bar, before they closed it down.  As I looked through my mementos that I have from my Dad I thought that one summed him up better than all the others combined.  Don’t get me wrong I loved my Dad but if you were look up dysfunctional relationship it would have our picture there.  I have pondered it quite a bit over the years and have come to conclusion that what was broken about our relationship was related to his absence in my youth. 

Without that bond that is formed between a father and son when one is a kid it creates a distance that can never truly be bridged.  We never played catch, we never did things that would have us playing together.  Without that it became more about being friends, the only problem for me was that I would not normally be friends with someone like my Dad.  Weird I know and I wont go into it here but just know that wooden token that would have gotten him a free lunch sums up my Dad, it makes me cry to think that but it’s true.  This picture was taken in July of 2009, a few months before he passed and the last time I saw him in person.

Also in there is a Queen Elizabeth II silver jubilee crown coin to represent my Mom.  She was born in England and met my Dad in France when he was in the Army.  I thought of all the mementos I have from my Mom that one best sums her up.  I loved her a lot and miss her.  We also had a strained relationship most of the times, especially when I was a kid.  I was also her self admitted favorite, take that Siblings 😊.   Most of the challenges with my parents were due to my own damned dumbassedness.

My Mom was great to my Bride, always so thoughtful.  The two of them were sometimes thick as thieves and on more than one occasion I was super nervous about that.  I was glad that she found happiness later in life when she married her 3^rd husband.  I think he was the only one that she truly loved, the other two were vehicles to get out of shitty situations, although she never said that to me. This picture is from when she graduated with her Masters degree, she was within a year or two of the age I am now.

It makes me laugh even now that I look at the three of those items beside each other, preserved in epoxy for time and eternity.  I am not sure if it would even be possible to find three people who were further apart with who they were and how they traveled through life then these three.  I remember when I was living with my Dad and when my Mom called he would answer, not say a word and hang up.  He would then proceed to say “your Mother called”.  I remember when I went to boot camp for the Navy, both Dad and Granny both told me, in different words, not to bring home a foreign wife.    

While I wrote this as I went along I am wrapping up this note about a month or more after I finished the desk.  We are now looking at the end of the year before we consider going back into the office.  Nationally the cases and hospitalization number are spiking, with Florida leading with 15,300 new cases in one day over the weekend.  You will probably have the perspective of time by the time you read this but life in this country is CRAZY right now.

I do want to give a shout out to my Bride of 30 years in this Sandy.  She did not really give me any shit about building this desk.  She is the most tolerant woman in the world to put up with all my idiosyncratic behaviors.  She really did like how it came out and has asked about maybe making a coffee table for our living room like this, smaller obviously.  I will at some point I am sure it.  Love ya Honey!

So, there is the story.  I wonder what you must be thinking about this note, I also wonder what year it is and how you might have come to have this desk or be reading this note. I tried to capture the moment in time and the meaning of all the things on this desk for you the best I could.  I hope you can appreciate this desk and the effort and love that went into making it.

I was not super great at taking photos of every single step or capturing video of the processes. I find doing it to be a distraction from the work and the zone I get in when I am engaged in any of hobbies.  here are some pictures I did take along the way because some of my friends kept asking me how it was coming.

here are a few pictures of the finished desk

This is the monitor arm I made to hold two 27" monitors, all the wires are inside.

Here are a bunch of random ones I took along the way.

Bark removal

Testing of different sheens over danish oil

One of the bowtie holes I screwed and had to make a larger one

Pouring the black epoxy

This spot on the desk is actually what made me choose this slab.  It is a cross section of where a limb broke off at some point in the tree's life. 

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 [DS1]Remove for Blog post

Roy Eudy - September 25, 1944, to June 8, 2018

I first saw Roy on the beach while I was watching sunrises in Jacksonville Florida, this had to be late 2008 early 2009.  He was a regular walker and his timing coincided with my sunrise watching.  We did little more than acknowledge each other’s existence there at the beginning.  It was dark, it was early and who the hell knows what sorts of people are at the beach that time of the morning.  Seemed normal to me.  After his walk he would also drag his chair out to the beach with a cup of something and relax for a bit before leaving again.  Again, nothing more than a head nod at this point.

One day I get to the beach and as I am walking out a woman stopped me and asked if I had seen a dude, I told her that I had just arrived so no.  I didn’t think anything about it, as I said early at the beach brings all sorts of folks.  So, I was out in my chair and the next thing I know the beach is crawling with Cops.  It did not take them long to come and ask me some questions, about that woman.  Turns out she was sexually assaulted on the beach right before I got there.  As the cops are stringing up yellow tape and asking questions of everyone who even wandered by I asked Roy, who I did not know his name until that moment what he saw.  He, like me saw nothing.

After that we talked a bit more each time we saw each other and eventually ended up sitting together to watch the sun come up.  We started out with small talk about the beach and the sunrise and eventually about our lives, our professions and the challenges we each had along the way.  We started occasionally catching breakfast at the Beach Hut Café (https://www.facebook.com/Beach-Hut-Cafe-136175383061413/) after sun rise. 

One day I noticed the Texas longhorn on his car, is was very similar to the longhorn depicted in the Ranchero (Jalopy) badging.  It gave us another connection as Bride lived in Austin back in the day and Roy went to school there.  He was there back in 66 when the University of Texas Tower shooting took place, and knew some of the victims.  Some of his stories about that event were incredibly sad.  But back to the longhorn, I remember how devastated he was when it came off, or was stolen he wasn’t sure.  He ended up with a replacement from someone back in TX.

I don’t recall how many sunrises it took before he brought up the death of his son, Roy Jr. but I do recall it being a turning point in our relationship from one of acquaintances who enjoyed the beach to that of friends, friends who shared our lives with each other.  He had so much anguish about his death and rightly so but also what happened to and in his life after his son’s death.  He ended up getting divorced and had some issues with alcohol that slowed down his getting past those events.  He was a non drinker as long as I knew him.  It hurt my heart to listen and I remember that was the first time I gave him a hug, but it was not the last.    

He also talked a lot about his daughter’s divorce, it pained him a lot to see her going through that.   As much as it pained him to see her struggling with divorce, it hurt his soul when he thought about what his grand kids were enduring in the process.  He wished that they lived closer together or that they would move to Florida from California, which they eventually did.  We talked about it a lot over time, many more hugs were involved. 

I was with him on the beach watching sunrise when my sister called me to give me the news that my Dad was being flown to a bigger hospital for a surgery that would save his life, my Dad had many health issues.  Roy and I talked about that a bit and then I headed home.  Later, on my way home my Sister called to let me know that my Dad had passed.  I called Roy to let him know, he had asked that I keep him updated.  I told him I was heading to Ohio for the funeral.    

By this time we were good friends and I had invited him to attend a surprise (for Bride) renewal of our vows at the 20 year mark in 2010.  http://mroatmealsoratories.blogspot.com/2010/09/i-recently-experienced-most-special-day.html.  That was quite a special day for us and I was glad Roy agreed to come to our sunrise wedding. 

Bride and I for many years invited folks over to thanksgiving who may not have had family in town or for whatever reason were going to be alone.  I asked Roy to join us Thanksgiving, which he started doing every year until we moved from Florida and Oregon.  He was always so polite and fun to be around, some of the dinner crowd changed every year, there were a few exceptions to that and Roy was one of those exceptions.  So many stories and so many good memories.   

He was a member of The Club Continental in Orange park and on a few occasions we would go over there for breakfast or lunch.  It was a very nice place and all the folks there knew and apparently loved him.  They were always very nice and attentive to us, even more so than other guests.  I don’t recall him ever saying how long he was a member but I know he enjoyed going there.  That place also had great view over the St. Johns River.   I seem to recall a pretty kick ass BLT as well.  

I remember when he started having vision issues and talked about having to have a surgery, on both eyes.  He really did not want to do it but finally came around the realization that he had to get it done.  He was then super nervous about how he was going to get over there (south of orange park) and back to his place off Atlantic by San Pablo.  It took some convincing but finally he agreed to let me take him.  He had one done, and then a pretty comprehensive regime of drops and pills and checkups.  Then the other eye and the same routine.  It took him way longer to recover than they had lead him to believe. 

Roy also told me he wanted to purchase one of my sunrise pictures.  I asked which one?  He told me to pick my favorite one.  I have taken thousands, how was I to pick just one favorite.  After a few weeks of careful consideration I picked one that was simply spectacular.  It had the ocean, some great clouds and the bright lights of sunrise, AND, it had a seagull coasting around.  It is still amongst my favorites, I always thought how awesome it must be for that seagull, being able to experience all this beauty and to be able to soar through it – awesome.  I had that pic blown way up and framed for him. 

I could go on telling storied all day I suspect.  But I think the thing that I will cherish the most is just our friendship, two dudes who met on a beach while watching the sunrise and became friends.  Some days we would be sitting there in our chairs watching and not say 10 words to each other – morning Roy and see ya later Roy was the extent of the conversation some days, even if we sat for an hour watching. 

I will miss you Roy Eudy, thank you for being my friend – I am a better person for having known you!

Here he is with my Niece,

Lyndon Boyer, January 20th 1965 – December 29th2015

I have been friends with Lyndon Boyer since 1970, when we entered kindergarten together at Graham South Elementary school, a school that has since been torn down and replaced by an open field.  We shared a childhood,  adolescences, the rowdy teen years and then it got even better into adulthood, the friendship morphing at each phase to adjust to the new norms that our lives presented.  When we graduated, he stayed and started working in the family business and I went off and joined the US Navy.  After getting to see the world I was sure that I would never be able to return to small town life where I grew up.  I saw Lyndon nearly every time I went back to Ohio, which in the early years was pretty often. 

On the last couple of trips I did not get to see him as I had lost track of him and I was only in town long enough for a funeral.  There is an irony in that somewhere but the pain of losing him is too fresh for me to see it just yet.  We all have those friends who no matter how long it has been since you have seen them, you are able to pick right up where you left off like no time had passed, even if it had been years since you have seen them.  I have a great many friends that I served with like that and in fact I had dinner with one on this trip to Ohio.  We served together in the Navy and I had not seen each other since 1988 but picked up right where we left off.  Lyndon was one of four people I grew up with that I had that sort of relationship, with his passing there are only 2 left.

I had just four true friends, four that I kept up with from childhood.  In Lyndon’s case I did not do such a good job of keeping up in recent years.  I have nothing but bullshit excuses as to why I had lost track of him.  The sting of that is something I will have to live with for the rest of my life. For those who know me know, I cannot be guilted as I fully own every decision I have ever made, right wrong or indifferent.  I also do not have one single regret over the entire course of my life, until now, until this.  

I will carry the regret of never meeting the woman, Michelle that brought Lyndon out of the angry years.  I am not sure if anyone else called them that, but that is what I called the years after his divorce.  I will be forever indebted to her for helping my friend find joy and happiness again.  I will forever be sad that I never got to meet her, never got to know her.  Looking at pictures and talking to folks at his funeral, I know she did that for him.  Man oh man this is making me cry again.  I am going to miss that Dude and I am going to miss never getting to know the love of his life.  I got to say a half a dozen words to Michelle at the funeral, what can one say in that situation other than I am sorry for your loss.

All this sounds so selfish as I type it but I sure do miss my friend, and the shock of his passing has not even begun to sink in yet.  How can I sum up a lifetime of friendship in a blog, it is impossible!  This is actually the 5^th one of these I have written, when I get to the end and read it back they just seem so inadequate.  It really does feel like a part of me, a part no one else knows about is gone, gone forever. All our shared experiences over our lifetime are now just my memories, little treasures that I now feel entrusted to keep alive, it feels like a mighty responsibility and I can only hope I am up to the task.

My friend was one of the most upstanding men I have ever known, for as long as I have known him.  He despised laziness and demanded excellence. My first experience with that was in first or second grade.  We were playing kickball or dodge ball or something with a ball and I was selected to be on the same team as him. I sucked at the playing of most sports, well really all sports.  Right from the beginning of the game I was not meeting his expectations with regards to my performance on the field of play.  As I very vividly recall the incident, he was like a six year old Hulk Hogan, viciously hoisting me up over his head in a fit of uncontrolled rage.  After a few twirls to scare me even further, he unceremoniously threw me down on the ground like a sack of potatos, after which he did a victory dance.   That dance included giving me a kick in the head with each trip around my near lifeless body. That is “exactly” what happened, as I remember it.  If you were to ask him I am sure he would say that he accidentally brushed my arm, I fell over like a little fragile little girl and when I landed, on a padded surface, my weak and brittle bones just broke.  I suspect the truth is somewhere on the middle. 

It was funny, when speaking with his Dad Max at the viewing about that incident I learned they were scared to death my parents were going to sue them over the incident, which really lends credence to my telling of the events when you think about it.  My folks did not sue, but I never knew any of that and I suspect neither did he.  I remember my Mom was pissed about it for a long time, I suspect his parents footed that medical bill.  I was “not to play with that ruffian” anymore.  Well, we see how that worked out, 45 some years later here I am talking about our friendship, sorry Mom.

Lyndon and I hung out a lot when we were little kids, our houses were 3.5 miles apart, country miles and we would ride our bikes back and forth.  Speaking of riding bikes, I remember he and his brother Lloyd had Chopper style bicycles when we were probably 6 or 7.  He showed me that if I cut off the forks of another bike, and then hammered them over the existing forks that I too could create a chopper style bike, which I of course did.  Looking back that was such a dumbassed thing to do, if that would have come loose and fallen apart while I was riding I would have ended up seriously injured or killed, that mattered little to a 6 or 7 year old – I was cool because I had a cool bike!

Lyndon was always a super mechanical dude, after bikes he turned to souping up lawn mowers and even installing wheelie bars on one, like it was a freaking dragster!  That thing would pop wheelies and ride along at 25 - 30 miles an hour.  That makes me smile and laugh, mainly because he showed me how to that to, so of course I did that as well, much to the chagrin of my Dad.  It was a simple process, change some pulleys to change the input ratio to the transmission and then change some gears on the chain drive to a more positive ratio, looking back it was just too damn funny!

After that it was onto cars, I remember helping him change his mustang from an automatic to a four speed.  We laid on the dirt in a field next to his house dropping the automatic.  I remember he bought another car just for the parts to get that to work. When we went to get it, it did not have a steering column.  He had “fashioned” one out of iron pipe and some metal rebar and yep, I got to steer that thing from somewhere north of Urbana to his house, probably like 15 miles, and he was of course hauling ass, Max, he was always beating up on your work vans!  Again a not so smart idea but again, I did not know any better at the time.

From there he went to the Dodge Dart he got from his Brother, now that car was actually a hot rod and FAST!  We went up to Ohio High Point together for auto mechanics training, he always did better than me but I always muddled through.  I actually think I learned more from him and our other friends than I did the teacher.  If we fast forward past high school into adulthood I was visiting once and he showed me a tool, a weird wrench of sorts that he made for working on bridges, which he did with the Carpenters union.  I remember him telling me how he came up with the idea and that very day he ran home, tore apart his daughters bikes to build the prototype.  He ended up getting a patent on this thing.  I remember being impressed, again, by his oneness with the all things in the mechanical world.

I was driving around when I was back for his funeral, looking at the places we lived, the places we went to school, the places we hung out, drank beer, and got into trouble, such a flood of memories, some good, some bad and some awesome.  One that stood out when I went by their old house on Heck road was the gigantic chainsaw scar I have on my left foot.  I received that, you guessed it, at Lyndon’s house chopping up some branches that came down out of tree that is not even there any longer.  I remember him and another friend, Chris Miller, freaking out as they called my Dad to find out what hospital to take me to, all while a ½ inch wide 4 inch long chuck of skin, meat and bone was missing from my foot, and it was pouring out the blood.  I remember seeing meat hanging on the chain, it freaked me out to!  A trip to Piqua hospital and a bunch of stitches later and a cast and we were all set.  Well I say, all set I still walk with a slight limp, not enough to notice but enough to wear out shoes in a funny way.

He influenced me in a great many ways over the years.  I was always tearing things apart when I was a kid but Lyndon helped me take that to a new level.  He was fearless when it came to tearing things apart and understanding the true mechanicalness of things.  I am not sure that is a real word but for those who knew him, you know what I am talking about.   With that understanding of the mechanicalness of things I created a couple of my hobbies and pursue a career in electronics.  As far as hobby’s go, most of you know I have the two old cars that I love to wrench on.  Bride used to ask me all the time, why don’t you just get a new car or ones you don’t have to work on.  I had to explain that was the point of having old cars, to spin wrenches on them.  The very point is to have something to tinker with that you like and enjoy tinkering with, the fact they are transportation is secondary to them being a hobby or in my case a trifecta as I also used them as therapy.

There is nothing I am afraid to tear apart, in part because I watched my friend create his own chopper bicycle, create his own racing lawn mower, one that had freaking wheelie bars, and create his own Mustang with a four speed instead of an automatic.  All those things were for no other reason than he wanted them, and he figured out a way to get them, and this was LONG before the ability “google it”!  As I think about my professional successes in the electronics and technology field, a lot of what I learned from and with Lyndon followed me into that profession.  I learned that fearlessness and outward confidence regardless whether I had ever done a particular thing before was extremely important.  Those traits are, in my humble opinion, some of the keys to success in any career.  When you wrap in the ingrained “do the right thing” “always tell the truth” and “share what ya know” you have a really good start.  A lot of that I learned from Lyndon, not in any sort of real teacher way but from the example he provided – those things were not just words to be used but mottos by which to live one’s life!   

In the electronics field you can’t actually see the mechanicalness but it is there, hidden in the electrons and pure freaking magic that make up electronic gadgetry that surrounds us, believe me it is there.  In the physical world there is certain elegance, beauty really in all things mechanical.  Believe it or not, there is the same hidden elegance in electronics. The ways I learned and understood electronics always came back to the mechanicalness of things.  For example, in my mind, electrons flow like water through plumbing.  With each component changing the way the water might flow.  A resister acting as a valve, controlling volume, a transistor acting as a pump and so on and so on.  That relationship back to the mechanicalness of things is why I feel comfortable saying I am a pretty damn good engineer.

Sorry for rambling a bit on this one, my mind is running in a million directions and I feel like I have to get all our shared experiences, my gratitude to and admiration for my friend written down so the memories don’t fade.  I appreciate your indulgence on this.  If you ever do anything for me, do this.  Call your friends, Facebook your friends, send them a letter, whatever it is and tell em ya love em!  I had not been in touch in recent years, something I will regret for lots of reasons for the rest of my days.  It is a reminder that we mustn’t lose track of folks who are important in our lives, no matter the bullshit excuse you may come up with in our heads!  Always tell people how important they are to you, regardless of miles, regardless of the issues or any other bullshit that you think is standing in the way! 

Talk of guns, people and what they do with them.

So, I have been thinking about the gun violence in our country and how I feel about the current state of things.  It is such a complicated issue, it is very difficult for me to pick a side.  Then I wonder, do I really need to pick a side?  I am very conflicted on it,  I am pretty damn sure that gun control is not the answer but I recognize, as does the President and MANY others, that we need to do something. Douglas County Sheriff's Office identified the nine people killed as Lucero Alcaraz, 19; Quinn Glen Cooper, 18; Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, 59; Lucas Eibel, 18; Jason Dale Johnson, 33; Lawrence Levine, 67; Sarena Dawn Moore, 44; Treven Taylor Anspach, 20; and Rebecka Ann Carnes, 18.  This is madness!

I know people kill people, guns don't kill people.  My primary issue with gun control is this, and it has nothing to do with my feelings on it.  My issue is when we (the current crop of elected political dipshitoids) start putting stipulations on the Constitution we jeopardize the sanctity of the rule of law.  We will have created the ability of politicians who happen to be in office at that moment to determine a list of approved or disapproved list of sorts.  It is a slope that seems the start of something we do not want, as free Americans.  What happens next, another group places some addition limitations and so on until what, we ain't allowed to have any?

On the other hand, I have to ask - why is it ok for our country to allow these killings to continue?  We can even predict the exact flurry of activity by the minority speaking about how it is not the guns and how we should argue for more people to carry and even carry guns in the open.  It is a well rehearsed media blitz, fine tuned through many iterations of the same story.  They know which strings to pull and the automatons line up to say there piece, be it in he news, the office or on Facebook.  

Funny thing is, the other side has the same tired assed media blitz strategies as well.  I am sick of the bullshit that comes out of both sides.  I am sick of the bullshit that comes from it and I am sick of the two sides ineptitude on providing any freaking solutions to the actual problem.  Why don't they, they are too wrapped up in their own bullshit and their own political side of the story.  

Ya know who they are, we talk about them all - they are the right wing and the left wing.  Problem is, both have forgotten and are not even able to  understand that the two wings, both right and left, are still equally important parts of the same damn bird!  They bicker at each other, like freaking children, and never really solve any problems.  In a world without problems their importance is diminished, they feed on the self aggrandizing bullshit they spew out of their heads when bad things happen.  They don't care about getting victims of these senseless shootings justice, they fill us with platitudes while moving on to the next thing that gets them back in the publics eye - something that contributes to getting them elected. 

We as the masses move on, numb to the facts that we are all complicit in it, regardless I which side you take.  Desensitized to violence of this stupendously heinous nature. Our elected officials have not been able to solve this problem!  Taking away our rights to bear any arms is not the answer.  Doing nothing is not the answer - they have failed us!  I do not pretend to know how to solve these, one of the reasons I am not running for office.  But shouldn't we demand the ones we do send into represent us be able to solve problems?  Or are we too worried about the party line, which ever one you happen to tow?  

I want to say I am sorry to the families and friends of Lucero Alcaraz, Quinn Glen Cooper, Kim Saltmarsh Dietz, Lucas Eibel, Jason Dale Johnson, Lawrence Levine, Sarena Dawn Moore, Treven Taylor Anspach, and Rebecka Ann Carnes.  I am sorry, for what ever reasons, that our government has not even tried to solve the problem that ended up taking your family member or friend in a violent death.   It makes me mad as hell, I am going to be looking for some group that is working on this and support that anyway I can.  

My heart goes out to all the folks in Roseburg Oregon.  We were at Crater Lake, a short distance away, enjoying some vacation time with a Brotehr in law and his wife when this happened.  We went past Roseburg on the I-5 and saw the media trucks lining up, they will invade that small town with the ruthlessness of a bull in a china shop and take over the town.  Asking stupid questions to people who may or may not have any real involvement.  They will have to fill days of news with non stop coverage, there will be crisis mongering and folks spewing righteous indignation.  But at the end of day it will fade in to the past with little fane fair, little to nothing will change and we will have diminished just a little more the importance and absolute preciousness of life.  

What say you about this madness?