The crew was out in the back room at John's
house.
Morton and Hank were freshmen, while Peter, Dan and John were juniors in high school. John preferred
to hang out with Peter’s
brother, Morton, rather then Peter.
"But, Morton is two years younger then you."
"So what," said John. "Peter is a mean bastard."
They were telling Morton and Hank about
high school Woodshop.
It was really different
then Junior High School. If you wanted 12 inches out of a 15 inch board,
you were charged for the entire length. The thickness was really annoying. You were charged
for a board being 1 inch thick when it was only 7/8 of an inch.
Peter started talking about the required
project, a jewel box, for Woodshop II. They learned how to use the tools by making the required project -
a jewel box. Ideally, since they
started in September, they should be done by Christmas, but things did not go well.
John remembered what a
disaster his project had almost become.
He combined his money from home with his lunch money to buy walnut. It was the most expensive wood and when
it was carefully worked,
lacquered and polished, it looked phenomenal. The down side was it stained easily, was soft, showed scratches
and tended to splinter. John was very
careful when he worked with the jewel box. He always washed his hands before working with it so the oil from his
hands wouldn't mark it.
The shop teacher had this maniacal preoccupation with
the blades on the tools. They had to be as sharp as possible. If Matheson suspected one was dull, he would replace
it and send the old one off to metal
shop to get sharpened. John was thankful because the walnut would not be so prone to splintering.
If if it had splintered, he had no money left to buy replacement wood.
He had told Peter and instantly regretted it. Every chance he could, Peter would remind John to not make a
mistake in the most gloating voice imaginable.
Everything had gone well to the point where he put yellow paint inside the
box and, before it could dry, added yellow fuzz to create a yellow flock interior. The yellow paint never
dried. Peter was ecstatic.
John's
next few shop periods were spent wiping out
the interior of
the box with paint thinner soaked rags, until he got as much of the yellow paint out as possible.
Finally, he tried coating
the edge of the box and the interior with black paint. Once that had dried, he used red paint with red
fuzz to create a red flock interior.
John's Mom was really thrilled when she opened her
Christmas present. The jewel box looked really sharp.
“Remember the yellow flock, Meier?”
Peter arrogantly said.
John hated it when Peter called him by his last name. John had
asked him not to, but Peter did whatever Peter pleased.
“My name is John.”
“Remember how you had to do it
twice, Meier?” Peter
said ignoring John. “You didn’t have the money to throw it out and
make another one. You almost didn’t get it done,” he gloated.
John wanted to punch him, but knew it would be an excuse for Peter to beat him up.
“Hey Morton," John brightened. “Remember when
Peter’s door
was locked? You and I burst in?” It was like it happened yesterday,
though it was the year before . . .
