Blog Woodworking Plans

well, we lost a friend last week. when i came to town in 1971 after traveling around for a couple of years, michael and meg were running a small business called virgil gibbs boots and leather in the center of what was then a funky little town of a couple thousand people. kit and i also lived in the center of that town,

and since vgb&l became sort of a hangout place, we hung out there. time went on and in 1973, we all bought some land in towns nearby, got married, and built some houses. none of us really had much of a clue what we were doing regarding building houses at the time. one friend bought an old backhoe and an old john deere bulldozer. i bought a book and read up on carpentry ... rim joist, rafter tail, header ....we all worked together on each others houses. it was, in hindsight, a kind of a magical time in vermont. land was cheapish. our first building lot was $7000., our first mortgage $25,000. we were bartenders and there was no tax on tips .... anyway, we all go way back.

michael and i went on to become full time carpenters after we moved into our houses, and went on to have kids and raise our families. there were, in 1974, five of us who built houses that year, we worked together, and were all still friends today. michael went on later to become a builder and i went on to build furniture. above, in 1976, we are raising the frame of my first wood shop/garage at our house in arlington.

mikes easy to spot in the photos above as the only bald guy.

later, after his divorce, michael built a house next door to ours on goodwood lane in dorset, and was our neighbor for a couple of years there before moving to california and remarrying. as one friend said recently, he added the spice to the stew. an excellent observation ..

open studio, 2003 with kit and mike and friends at the shop. the tall guy there on the right in the blue shirt was one of the five 1974 house builders, as was the shorter women in the white shirt standing with him ..

so, we made a box ... with some reclaimed wood from a project michael did in downtown dorset that miraculously ended up in my garage when i needed it for the box. it had come to me when we did some work on that house a couple years ago.

i only hit a few hand wrought nails when i resawed it for the box wood.

i put a little leather inside for virgil gibbs

r.i.p. mike

yall enjoy your friends and every healthy moment ... onward ...

from this weeks manchester journal ...click to read it ...

added this to the leather inside in the end

well its not often you lose two friends in a span of a week or so, but sometimes, i guess, it just happens.

we attended a memorial service last sunday for a former employee who started to work for us as a senior in high school. he and will both took part in the target program, an alternative program in our local high school, burr and burton. he continued with us for about 6 years after he graduated, and became our first employee cnc enthusiast, and its main operator. will also did the target program where kids do academics in the morning and go out into the community to work in the afternoons. wills journey took him to vew-do the balance board company where he learned about computers, photoshop, marketing and customer service. ethan and will were friends from the time we moved to dorset in 1996. i could go on and on here, and i did mumble for a bit at the service, but will actually summed it up perfectly in a post he wrote on facebook ... so, ill just say here what will said ...

click the photo to read it .... its a heartfelt one.