BIG ED Gets a New Hat
 I finally remembered to bring in the black cowboy hat I bought at a garage sale for BIG ED. As soon as I saw it at the sale I knew I wanted to see it on him. He spends the winters down in Arizona and the place is infested with cowboys…but mostly snowbird cowboys. He’ll fit in better now, even if the hat doesn’t quite fit.

              BIG ED was working on a cowboy snowman and something else that is still fairly unrecognizable. It’s a roughout of something. Care to take a guess?
     I’ll go first…Siamese trolls sharing 2 arms and three legs.You can email me your guess and a winner will be chosen.….ED is sworn to secrecy for now.
 Ed tried on the black hat…Someone said only bad guys wore blackhats but Ed said that Gene Autry wore one…Ed ought to know, they went to high school together.
  
 Don the Cop started working with his wood burning outfit a few weeks ago. Today he brought in three framed projects..Very nice work Don.
      Bob from Whitestone came in around 10am…He often comes in a little later than many of the others, but then he is driving in all the way from Whitestone..He was basking in the glow of being singled out to be the assistant to the helper of one of the officers of the New Hyde Park carving club… What I think really happened was that he got up from the meeting to go to the restroom..When he returned he was elected…he’s lucky they didn’t make him the president.  Bob said that he had great plans to raise the treasury by a lot…All he had to do was recruit 60 more members. Good luck Bob!

    Eli came in carrying a birthday cake. His. He said he was eighty years old and if he’s telling the truth he is looking very well indeed…”Beauty is on the outside..Don’t ask about the inside.” Said Eli.
 I said that I wish I was eighty….Someone asked why I would wish to be  older than I was…I said “ I would look pretty good for an eighty year old.” Many of us had some birthday cake …I thought it was excellent…all three slices.
  
 Tom said..”Oy…Three pieces he had already…Oy.”
 Gene sometimes comes to the Thursday sessions. He’s more active with the New Hyde Park Club..and he writes a monthly newsletter for them. He was carving a dog and having trouble ..Most of it with the hind legs..”I cut off too much wood..His legs are supposed to stick out more.”
 He took out some “wonder wood fixer”.It’s a two part mix and you stick it onto the part that you need more of because you cut off too much..like Gene did.
  We’ll see how that works out

     . Everybody has problems…I have plenty, to be sure. I was having trouble with the eyes again..For what seemed like the  eightieth time, Ed sliced off the old eyes and showed me how to do eyes…..again. This time I think I paid attention…All I have to do is remember what he did..
 Last week I brought in a little statue I found at a garage sale..It has a lot of detail but the wood seemed very hard, We weren’t even sure it was wood..Maybe plastic? Ed would know…
 Ed held it..felt the weight..tapped it on the desk….looked at the grain….posed thoughtfully ..and then said,,”It’s wood.” Hooray,,It was declared to be  wood by Ed…and what Ed says at the meetings is golden...And so it shall be written..and so it shall be done…
    ”It’s wood!”

 I went back to working on my wolf head walking stick /cane top.I had wood burned in some hair and then added some deeper grooves to simulate thicker hair

 …     The eyes look ok…so I’m happy.
 And so the sessions go..Always fun..always interesting and always worth writing about…

Carvers are Happier People

       
 I look forward to the Thursday carving sessions with the Panama Carvers (AKA The Long Island Wood Carvers Association). I pack my tools, my project of the day and my camera in a shopping bag and drive to the Senior Center in Merrick…

 As you enter the room, on the far left, is a smiling woman who always says ”good morning”. That’s the last nice thing you hear until you get to the smaller room with the carvers settling into their work.There is an intent group of four ladies playing Ma Jong…They rarely look up.”One bam—two crack- North” I have no idea what’s going on, but they look happy, they just don’t look up.

 And then we have the poker players who never look happy.
 ”How could you bet like that? It’s not a good bet.”
 “It’s my bet..That’s what I bet.”
 “You shouldn’t bet like that. It’s not good poker.”
 “Look at the money? Who knows from playing? You?”
  

    The Panama  Carvers are always happy…That’s BIG ED, Howie and Ed.  (Second Picture)
Howie has been working on his beautiful walking stick.He just added a wood spirit wearing a crown…It’s good to be the King.(Picture's 3 and 4)