I am essentially a self taught woodworker, starting with making a balsa wood WWII fighter from a kit when I was around 5, in 1946. My mother trusted me to use the sharp tools I needed to cut out the parts from thin sheets of balsa wood and to carve  solid blocks to look like airplanes. My 9 year old friend, Carl, was my mentor and my inspiration. I made models of airplanes, cars and boats until the age of 16, all out of wood, sometimes wood and paper. Finally, I acquired a real boat, an old 23′ motor launch, with an antique hand-started engine and a mentor, a genuine old-timer who taught me about boating and marine carpentry. The boat bug bit me. It was 1959 and I’m on my fifth wooden boat.

When my then-wife was pregnant with our daughter, I wanted to build her a cradle. I purchased some plans and some equipment to build the fine furniture I couldn’t afford to buy. A friend enlisted me to build the shelves and seating for a small bookstore. My woodworking career had begun. It was 1971.

One of my first projects was a commission from the local Episcopal diocese to duplicate one of their pews for a chapel in North Myrtle Beach, where we had recently moved.  It was about 6′ long and heavy. I built it in our screened in porch and delivered it, proud of my accomplishment. The next Monday, the priest called me up to say that there was loud report, like a gunshot, during the service. The seat had separated from the back explosively and would I come and fix it. In my ignorance, I had merely glued the two pieces together with a strong but brittle glue without nails or screws. That’s when I learned about flexible glues versus brittle glues. I reglued the joint with the right glue and nailed the back to the seat. It’s still going strong after 40 years.

Basically, I learn from my mistakes. My best work will never be seen. I opened up a shop in the area. Within a year, I was the go-to fine woodworker in town. I went on to work with top-notch interior designers, repairing furniture for an insurance company, restoring antiques for antique dealers, designing and building furniture for individuals,  pews and a 6′ illuminated cross for local churches, cabinets and office furniture for the largest furniture store at the time; special projects like a bedroom with a mirrored wall with a cut-out for a mirrored door, a 3′ diameter walnut display cabinet for the Meher Baba Center and a teak office for the Myrtle Beach Hilton, the first multi-storey building at the time. It was 1974. Then the oil embargo happened and all the jobs dried up. I went from 5 employees to one in a matter of three weeks.

The next year, I moved to the West Coast to be near my children where my soon-to-be-ex-wife had moved. We found a snug bungalow in Oakland and I set up shop in the garage. The work changed. I worked more on houses and boats than I had in Myrtle Beach. I acquired more skills, like interior finish work, stair making, door making and installation, window making, drywall installation, wooden tub making, plumbing and tiling, and the occasional furniture piece. I helped a property owner refurbish a three story house and built a handcart with wooden wheels for a sidewalk flower merchant. I was busy working on the bits and pieces that boats require. The apogee of this line of boat carpentry was designing and building the deckhouse windows for a 78′ dragger, at the time the largest wooden boat built in the Bay area in fifty years or so . The job was so large and  complex, it took my partner and I three months to build it. The year was 1978.

In 1980, we moved to Marin County where I pursued a completely different line of work.