A Weekend Ride and "The Pencil Box"

Last Saturday was a BEAUTIFUL fall day. Holly S., Barbara Y., and Kwen S. rode towards Volin where we hooked up with Cathy L. making her way down from Wakonda to join us. We rolled into the Volin Cafe for a snack and while we were there, Mr. Krause, my high school Shop (Industrial Arts) teacher came in. I hadn't seen him for quite some time.

It brought back a high school memory that is easy to laugh at now, but was a bit traumatic at the time. You see, Mr. Krause was a nice enough guy, but was tragically born without a sense of humor. Well, maybe that isn't true, but what was there was a pretty dry sense of humor. Then there was me; the kid who was NOT going to do well in Shop class. To this day, crafty building type activities are not my thing. Let us move on to the meat of this story.

We HAD to build a "drawer project". In order for me to survive, it was going to be as SIMPLE as humanly possible. I found some left over cedar in the wood bin and I set about making my pencil box, after drafting it in the classroom of course. For the drawer, I used some extra press board. When I was done gluing, I knew by looking at it that the drawer wasn't *exactly* square. To my defense, it DID go in and out of the hole for the drawer.

When Mr. Krause inspected my project he looked it over, moved it in and out, and then...he pulled out the drawer. He looked at it from every angle, then he looked at me, then he looked at the drawer, then WHAM! He smacked my drawer against the workbench breaking it into many pieces and said "DO IT AGAIN".

Oh the horror and the shame for a young kid. I DID refinish my drawer and received at least a less menacing glance the second time around. You know what's funny? I still have it! I'm missing the two pieces of wire that served as a letter holder, but it's still in use! It has a few nicks and marks, but hey, it was built around 1981 so it looks good for being at least 25 years old, don't you think?



By the way, the rest of the ride was very nice. Cathy rode with us to Frog Creek Road and the dreaded Rice Hill. I decided to escort her back to Wakonda and then back to Vermillion as I wanted more miles. I hope we get one more little heat wave in the upcoming weekends!