Went back to my old shop after 12 years, the block room shook me

Stopped by the place I apprenticed at back in 2011, the one on 5th and Main. The same wooden block still had my initials carved near the edge, but now it's got a band saw right next to it and they break down whole hogs with a power cutter. Nobody hand-saws briskets anymore, and even the oldest guy there, Dave, admitted he only uses his bone saw for show. I get the speed thing, but that rhythmic knife work is what taught me feel, not just force. Anyone else miss the click of a cleaver on a worn block over the hum of a motor?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_johnson221d ago

That line about the "rhythmic knife work" teaching feel hits hard... seems like everything's going that way now. I noticed it with my grandpa's old hand tools sitting in the garage, nobody learns the slow way anymore when a machine can do it in half the time. We're trading away the muscle memory and patience that used to come with doing things by hand, and I think that's a loss you can't really measure.

wrenstone1d ago

Read a piece claiming we're losing "the feel of materials." Yeah. Something's gone.