Cutting Firewood, Alone

Above three photos taken by my daughter, Amber

I know I have written about cutting firewood in the past and it's because this activity connects me to my father like none other.

When I was a teen hitchhiking to college I was picked up by a gentleman who enlightened me about the transcendentalists. He especially suggested I read Thoreau. Walden made a huge impact on my life. His name was Bob Chase. He gave me a papermate pen with his name on it which I used for many years to scribe a journal. Finally his name wore completely off the barrel and the pen was tossed into a drawer someplace.

After reading Thoreau's account of his experience at Walden Pond my admiration for nature was reinforced. There was something so practical about living in a tiny hut, washing your floors with a bucket of cold pond water and opening the doors and letting the fresh air cleanse things.

As a teen I spent many many hours in the woods. At first playing army with neighborhood kids and then hunting with my Dad or best buddies. So many afternoons I couldn't wait to jump off the school bus, run into the house, grab a gun and then into the woods in search of partridge, pheasant, rabbit or deer. Hunting held a fascination for me as did the woods. At the time I knew nothing more exciting than to explore an abandoned tote road or game path.

Behind my house were many square miles of large tracts of land. I could walk for miles and never have to cross the same stream in the same place. I did become familiar with the land but never sure where I might see a rabbit or deer or fox.

At the same time my parents installed a wood stove in our cellar. It must have been during the energy crises in the 1970's. My dad had also acquired a woodlot about 3 miles from our home. He had cut an old dump truck down to its chasis and engine. Built a box beneath the steering wheel to sit on and we had a woods rig. It was two wheel drive and very prone to becoming stuck. None the less we drove it up to the woodlot and loaded up a trailer with beech and birch and hauled it home and stacked 4 or 5 cords in the cellar for the winter.

I wasn't always enthusiastic about these excursions. I would have rather watched cartoons or done nothing most of the time. But once we got out there it was fun. My Dad taught me how to use the chainsaw and how not to use the chainsaw. My first vivid experience was when the saw caught on my pant leg just below my knee. The lower part of my jeans fell to the ground. I thought I must have cut into my leg or even cut my leg off as well. I remember waiting for the pain and not wanting to look as I anticipated the worst. I don't think my Dad saw what had happened as he tossed a log in front of me an commanded me to, "cut this one." With still no pain I looked at my leg and to my astonishment there was no cut at all. I went on cutting like nothing had happened.

Armed with chainsaws and a chopped up dump truck spewing carbon monoxide wildly into the envioronment with tire chains isn't exactly as romantic as Thoreau's wood cutter who could cut four chords of wood with an axe and during breaks chickadees would, without incident, land on his head. All the same, cutting wood is such a simple task that it somehow becomes elegant.

My Dad and I mostly have in common our DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). Other than that and the fact he was my Father we didn't have a lot in common. He loved God, old tools, antiques, his dog, his children and cutting firewood. I have always been terribly curious about God, less so about tools and antiques and have an understanding about cutting firewood. When we got together there was never a dull moment but I could never talk to him about art, music, science, current events or such because of these subjects he was incognizant. And although I could tell him about Thoreau or Emerson, Bach, Faynman, Hubble, Rembrant, Picasso, Dylan Thomas, scripting languages, etc., etc., he found my interests to have no relevance to his own existence.

I was always slightly sad that neither of my parents could appreciate the art that I used to create. But as I have become older I understand that it is not important. People who want to appreciate art will do so, others who may be indifferent understand other things, maybe as a compensation. With my Father, cutting firewood was an artform, which I am grateful to understand.

Without exaggeration cutting firewood came from his soul. It was a straightforward expression of his passion and existence. He passed some of this onto me. I am distracted from pursuing art presently but if I chose an artform, cutting firewood would be high on my list. As I sit here trying to convey this concept I understand how esoteric my thoughts are. Today, as the chainsaw rattled violently in my oily gloves and sawdust sprayed above and below me I felt a connection with my Dad.

I knew if he were here cutting wood with me and not at Sentry Hill he would anticipate my every move and me his. When we cut wood together it was like a synchronized collaboration. In art what you really have in the end is a finished product which may or may not be a representation of the process. In cutting firewood what you have in addition to flat tires, broken blades, burned out spark plugs, ringing ears, plugged carburators, a sore back, ticks and nostrils full of exhaust is a pile, a pile of satisfaction.