The Woodchopper

There's a whisper on the nightwind,
There's a star agleam to guide us,
And the wild is calling, calling.....let us go.
Author Unknown


By trade, he was a fisherman but on the side and in his heart, Uncle Len was a carpenter. He treated his craft with care, integrity and patience - first he built my playhouse complete with door and working windows, then lovingly fashioned a cradle, a dollhouse, a toy chest, and a sled. Each was carved and sanded and painted one step at a time, slowly and with with meticulous care to detail. That they were made for a child of ten made no difference to him as he worked on everything he made the same way. When he had finished a piece, he would wrap it in blankets and padding and load it into the back of his ancient pick up truck and drive down the hill and into our driveway. Eventually, the playhouse was completely furnished from Uncle Len's workshop.

He was a tall, slender man and as he aged he came to look almost frail except for his blue eyes and snowy hair. He favored heavy workboots and dark green overalls from the Spiegel catalogue and wore his carpenter's belt with pride. His workshop was always neat with everything in it's place and a layer of sawdust on the floor. The smell of cedar chips and sweet pipe tobacco seemed to trail afer him like a faithful old dog and his hands were frequently bruised and stained with paint or varnish. He was a widower with a grown daughter, his granddaughter was my best friend and he lived alone in a tired, old two story house just up the road. When Nana asked him why he didn't spend a little more time on his house and a little less time on what she called his "fancies", he shrugged and said that the house suited him the way it was - It be just a house and we both be goin' soon he told her mildly. She scolded him but to no avail.

One afternoon during the demolition, my grandmother walked up the road and returned with a wind gage of sorts,
a brightly painted woodchopper who spun in the direction of the wind and chopped like a madman when the wind blew. She planted it next to the flagpole and checked it each morning and evening, claiming it helped her predict the weather. It had been the last "fancy" that Uncle Len had finished and it stood spinning and chopping for years.
It always made her smile.