Perspective on a Minor Problem

Getting sheet stock home, or getting a large project, like a bookcase, delivered is always a problem for the amateur woodworker. It's doubly true if he does not have a pick up truck with a full size bed. Since I don't, I've had to improvise. My solution as been to build a frame that I can clamp to the luggage carrier on my station wagon. I can throw the 4 X 8 sheets up there and clamp them down for the trip home. It's a little akward, and it takes a while to set up, but it has served me well. Option #2 is to borrow my next door neighbor's full size tradesman van. I did it quite a few time last summer when I built my woodworking shop.

None of this is close to the problems my friend, Otto, tells me his father faced in his woodworking business in Hungary. Coffins were a big part of his trade. He promised delivery of the completed coffin 24 hours after the order was placed. That meant he worked all night assembling the coffina and finishing it. Otto's father then strapped the coffin to his back somehow and rode a bike to deliver it. If the delivery was in town, the ride wasn't too difficult. If the delivery was a few miles out of town and it was winter, that delivery could stretch into hours.

I love these old stories. They give me a peek into a world that once existed, but is now long gone. My father, for example, when he was a kid rode a mule to the mill every Saturday carrying a sack of corn to be ground into cornmeal for the week. My mother's job during the depression was to walk the railroad tracks after school every day to gather coal that had fallen off the passing trains so that her family could heat their home.

Life was much harder back then. The ease of modern life must have been inconceivable to them. I'm not sure that we baby boomers measure up when we are compared to our parents.