A story, and a knothole question

Victor De Long · 2004-07-01T15:24:50+00:00

To understand the whys of the question, I have to first tell a small story.Well, a story with a short preface.The Preface:Met my wife 20 years ago in high school, dated a little while, parted ways,got married 15 or 16 years later after living in different states for mostof that time with little contact.The Story:We're at the Central Washington State Fair a couple years ago, and I noticedthat, no matter what barn or building we were in, she always gravitated tothe ugliest, most pathetic, most horrific, most wretched looking creaturesin the building. The ugliest, scrawniest cow? That was the one she thoughtwas "soooo cute." In the reptile barn? The nastiest, scaliest, ugliestlizard was, to her, "so beautiful." At Xmas she always wants to go for theCharlie Brown tree, four feet tall with three branches and seven needles.That, of course, is when I realized exactly how I'd managed to bag thisbeauty. She looked around at all the available suitors, and picked the mostpathetic, most wretched looking one of the bunch, me.And don't get me wrong, I ain't arguing with it. Take what you can get andask for seconds. But all of this is only to shed light on:The Knothole Question:I picked up for cheap the other day a sizable piece of beautiful walnut, onefoot by three feet. An inch thick. Cheap because at one end is a humongousknot. The knot itself is probably three or four inches across, maybe alittle more. The knothole itself is probably, give or take, an inch and ahalf across.So I was showing my wife my smart purchase, saying, I can cut around thatknot, and that still leaves a whole lot of nice looking walnut to use fortrim or small boxes or whatever. "Well, what are you going to do with thatknot?" she says. "It's really beautiful." I made the Tim Taylor"Arrrrooooo?" noise, then pretty much forgot about it until she mentioned itagain the next day. And again a few days later. That's when I startedtrying to come up with a project, any project, that would...

Jul 01, 2004 21 Replies

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dave in fairfax 22 years ago

Well, yeah, but that's a quantum leap from Zen. OTOH, it could be the same, it's a bit chaotic. Dave in Fairfax

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Robert Bonomi 22 years ago

Well, at only 1-1/2" it's too small for the 'obvious' application -- as a high-class seat for a privvy.

More seriously, make a medium-small _box_ with the knothole centered in the front face.

Then construct a miniature 'diorama' inside the box, to be viewed by looking though the knothole. a la a Fabrege` egg. Better yet, have _her_ build the diorama. If you're mean, you'll make her do it _after_ you seal the enclosure -- a la 'ship in a bottle' construction techniques.

Possibly a picture-frame for a locket/wallet-size photo. a collar-bone-up shot. "My favorite knot-head".

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