Michael Thiele is a woodsmith who makes musical instruments and playable furniture. He spends most of his life either in the shop or out on the road buying wood and selling his work at craft shows. In recent years, his travels have begun to inspire his own writing, so he sends me his thoughts.
Jan 26
T.G.I.F.
When I was in college, back in the 60’s, there was this saying: T.G.I.F. - Thank God It’s Friday. Rough translation: end of the week. Time to party. Today is decidedly not that. When last I wrote, a few days ago I felt like airport bait. Delays, cancellations. Don’t want to talk about it.
I am in Florida for the art show season. Son Joah had convinced me that I needed to come back to the shop between shows, two consecutive weeks, to build a musical coffee table of Hawaiian Koa and rosewood. We historically have one for sale during this winter tour. But not this year.
Beautiful, grandly sonorous and not inexpensive the things take about a week to build. So on consecutive Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays I was to have fashioned one which would be shipped down to me in Florida for exhibition and sale.
I earlier chronicled how week one of the two fell apart due to flight cancellations. The plan was to fly on Mondays and Fridays and work the three days in between.
I got it in my head that maybe I could pull it off in three extremely long days - perhaps fourteen hours a day. Brutal but do-able. Having driven from Boca Raton, the sight of last weekend’s event, to my motel in Tampa from where I was flying home I got in bed at about 1 a.m. local time. I arose at six, attended to a number of loose ends and arrived at the airport around 10:30 for a noon flight. Delays and connections had me getting in bed at my shop at two a.m. Tuesday morning.
Loaded up with rest I started working on the table at six a.m. by bedtime at midnight on Thursday the table was finished. Fifty work hours across three days got the job done. I caught the shuttle to Phoenix for the flight back to Tampa at four a.m this morning. Thank god I sleep on planes. Thank god it’s Friday.
Later, after some Z’s
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