When I was a lad I always spent a lot of time during the summer at my grandparent’s farm in the head of Broad Run, a tributary of the Elk just above Clendenin. Grandpa had a forty-six acre spread which sustained him his entire life. The neighboring farm was operated by a man by the name of Dennis Drake. Dennis was much younger than Grandpa and he was a brute of a man. I liked to hang out with Dennis. He was a good checker player and was always into some kind of interesting activity.

One rainy, misty, rather cold summer day in June, I wandered up to the Drake farm to see what he was up to. It was too wet to do any outside farm work and I think we were both a little bored. Dennis said, “Let’s make us a sourwood cane. It’s a good day for that.” I had never heard of a sourwood cane but I was always game for a new adventure.

We walked on the hill together until Dennis spotted what he was searching for. “Now look here,” he said, “this is sourwood. See how it grows, straight as a gun barrel.” I took a close look and noticed that it did grow straight and the bark was very smooth. Just about every sourwood we looked at had a long section with no sprouting branches.

Dennis took out his big pocket knife, which was always as sharp as a razor, and cut three of the sourwoods into about 4 foot sections. When we got back to the house, he went inside and returned with a smaller carving knife. “Let’s go to the blacksmith shop,” he said, “and fire up the forge.”

We fired up the forge and Dennis showed me how to peel the bark from the sourwood into the pattern of a barber pole. We cut the pattern about half-an-inch wide all the way down the stick and peeled of the bark. Dennis then took the knife and outlined my name out of the bark on one of the sticks and his name on the other one. He also carved out a few simple art patterns. He carved a horse head out of the bark on the one with my name which I thought was pretty neat.  When he had finished carving, we peeled the bark off the areas where he had outlined our names and the art work. The rest of the bark remained on the sticks.

“Now, we’ll take them to the forge,” he said. He held each of the canes over the hot coals for a few minutes. The sections that had been outlined and peeled turned into a deep blue/purple. He let them cool for a bit, then told me to peel off the rest of the remaining bark. The result was amazing. We had three slick white canes with blue pictures and patterns.

“Now,” he said, “you have you a good walking stick. Even though you don’t need a cane, it’s always good to have a walking stick when you are tromping through the woods.  You never know when you might have to flip a blacksnake out of your path.”

I doubt that today’s youth would be amused with the sourwood cane project.  But back in the days before computers, cell phones, ipods, and blackberries, there was not much around to amuse a young boy. Shoot, you could only watch cartoons on Saturday morning in those days.

If you are fortunate enough to live out on the two lanes, or beyond them, you can usually find a patch of woods where some sourwood is growing. The next time one of your kids complains that they are bored, tell them to go out and cut themselves a sourwood cane. They might be amazed at how much fun it is to actually do something instead of watching a screen. My kids were amused when I showed them how to do it. I still have one in my basement that daughter, Tracy, made when she was about ten years old.  She carved her name on it and heated it over the burner on the cook stove.

Mack Samples is a well-known writer who lives in Clay County. He is also a musician who tours with the Samples Brothers Band.  Visit his website at www.macksamples.com.

Some of my friends have mentioned to me that they had difficulty making the transition from the world of work to the world of retirement. One person confided that he was a little disturbed when he realized that he had suddenly become a nobody after years of feeling like he was an important cog in the engine of society. I suppose we all have to come to grips with that.  No matter what kind of work you have done, it can be a little disturbing when you come to realize that you are no longer necessary.

In my own case, it took me about twenty-four hours to make the adjustment. Once I finally realized that I did not have to go to work, I went into a state of euphoria.

Suddenly, I was in a position to get up and do exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my active life. If I wanted to linger over my morning coffee for an extra thirty minutes, I could do so. I no longer had to worry about what kind of necktie I was going to wear that day. I no longer had to worry about what I was going to say when I sat around a conference table with a bunch of burning little egos, each trying to out-crow the other.

I found myself ecstatically happy lying on the ground trying to change attachments to the three point hitch on my tractor. I became so pleased with myself when I realized that, now that I had time to do it, I was a much better mechanic, plumber, electrician, and carpenter than I ever imagined. I got a real rush out of sawing down trees, watching them fall, and turning them into fuel for my woodstove. What could be more satisfying than climbing on the tractor and bush-hogging a field that was making the place look unsightly?

I learned very quickly that using a mattock, shovel, and posthole digger made your back and shoulders ache. But after using such hand tools on a regular basis for a while, I began to feel better, younger, and stronger than I had for years. It occurred to me that perhaps that’s what I should have been doing all my life.

I also discovered that when you use your hands every day, you hurt them. I am not talking about blisters and calluses. I’m talking about the real pain that comes with severely mashed fingers and deep cuts to your hands and wrists. When you lie under equipment using wrenches and screwdrivers, your hands are going to suffer some consequences. Or, when you are splitting firewood with a maul and wedges, you are going to mash a few fingers. That’s when you find out what you are made of!

Finally, I got a chance to enjoy the weather. What could be more fun than putting on some long underwear and a set of Carhartts, pulling your boggin down over your ears, climbing on your tractor on a winter morning when there is about a foot of snow on the ground with the mercury hanging near zero, and plowing your road out to the highway?

So my advice to those who feel a bit useless after they retire, get rid of those prissy neckties, move back off the two-lanes, pull on a set of Carhartts, and set about the task of discovering all of the things about yourself that you didn’t know.

Mack Samples is a well-known writer who lives in Clay County. He is also a musician who tours with the Samples Brothers Band.  Visit his website at www.macksamples.com.