Why I Work With Wood
I suggested we make our own bat from some of the bigger branches that fell during the previous night’s thunderstorm. I had just seen “The Natural” for the first time earlier that Summer and I recapped the story for my friends. This kid rescued some wood from a tree on his farm that had been split in half by lightning. This gave it magical powers (obviously). He carved a bolt into the bat and named it “Wonder Boy”. He grew up, turned into Robert Redford, and became the greatest baseball player of all time. My friends stared at me like I was an idiot.
I was an idiot. I hadn’t thought about any of the steps required to make a bat, or whether we had the skills or tools necessary (we didn’t). I hadn’t considered how we were going to even move this raw wood to a spot where we could work on it.
So five bored 8-year-olds dragged a quarter of a Maple tree down the street and back to my garage, where my Dad kept his power tools. We left a long winding trail of leaves and twigs all through the neighborhood. By the time we got it to the garage, I had lost 3 of the original 4 friends that were with me. Not forever, they came back over the next day, but they were done with this whole idea and left to play Ninja Turtles or something. My one loyal friend and I put the branch down, took a breath, and stared at each other. We had no idea what the next step should be.
After a lot of walking around the tree branch and pulling off the tiniest twigs and leaves, pretending to make progress, I saw it. It was the perfect branch. Maybe it wasn’t quite the size of a “regulation” bat, which is what I was aiming for. To be honest, it was much, much smaller, but it was straight-ish, and I was starting to realize that the next step would involve using a handsaw with our spindly 8-year-old arms, so my expectations were getting more reasonable by the second.
After what seemed like 19 hours of manual labor, we separated the bat from the branch. It was exciting. The bat wasn’t perfectly straight, but compared to our other options, it wasn’t bad. We had no clue how to taper the end, round the edges, or make a knob at the handle. How could we make this less of a stick and more of a bat? I spotted a can of black spray paint on the garage shelf and didn’t hesitate. We took the stick out into the yard and painted it flat black.
The next day, my one loyal friend came over first thing to see the bat that had dried on the garage floor overnight. It was literally a 3-foot stick painted black, lying on some old newspaper covered in black smudges. It was…badass. My friend and I ceremoniously moved on to the final step without a word between us. We grabbed a couple of chisels from my Dad’s workbench and started carving out a lightning bolt on the bat.
To say we loved this thing would be an understatement. We cherished this bat for the next 4 Summers. Even my ninja turtle friends who ditched us that day grew to respect the bat and help protect it when other friends got a little rough with it. It was basically a member of our group. Doing some crude math, I estimate that we spent about 720 hours with this bat. We played an obscene amount of baseball in those days. Always taking turns with that bat.
This little black bat was the first thing I ever made from start to finish, without adult help. My Dad did some woodworking, and I’d help him with projects in the garage. I was even more interested in helping after making something on my own.
That bat showed me something that I didn’t have words for at 8 years old. It was at the center of some strong bonds between friends. There was something special about this being made from a once living tree, about how we stumbled through the whole process, and about how we actually made it work in the end. If we had used some other material, I don’t think it would’ve had the same impact on me.
Twenty-something years later, I'm still chasing what that bat taught me. Every piece of furniture I build is another conversation with wood - another negotiation between what I want and what the material offers. I've learned more techniques, acquired better tools, but the fundamental truth remains: wood demands something from you and gives something back that no synthetic material can match. It challenges you, humbles you, and rewards patience with pieces that carry a bit of life long after they leave the shop. So, I love building with wood.
