Looking Out: Working out the bugs in quest for free lumber
My pal Shifty Cogswell and I ride bicycles together most days, and this always leads to pleasant conversation as we crank along the roads and trails. Occasionally it leads to adventure or misadventure.
We both enjoy woodworking. He’s envious of my little workshop because it is in the basement and heated. I’m envious of his spacious workshop because it is in a big garage with no stairs.
While riding a few days ago, Shifty told that his old college chum Mitch had a huge pile of black cherry lumber to give away. Shifty and I both enjoy working with cherry. Besides, what’s not to like about free lumber?
The next day, Shifty and I climbed into his pickup and drove an hour to meet Mitch at the storage unit he was emptying. Mitch rolled up the door and sure enough, next to some old furniture and what-not was a huge pile of rough-sawn cherry, all properly stacked and stickered. It was very dusty and dirty from sitting so long.
“I had a tree in my front yard cut down many years ago,” said Mitch. “I had it sawed into lumber, always thinking I’d make stuff out of it, but so far all I’ve made is rent payments on this storage unit.”
The three of us donned gloves and made quick work of loading half of the pile in the back of the truck, which pushed the vehicle well-down on its springs.
“We’ll have to come back for the rest,” said Shifty.
We thanked Mitch and headed home.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Shifty.
“Oh, oh.”
“If we take this home, we’ll have to unload it. Then we’ll have to reload it and drive to the mill to have it planed smooth, trimmed and edged. There’s way too much for us to do that with our own equipment,” he said.
“You’re right,” I replied.
“Let’s take it to the mill right now.”
We did. An hour-and-a-half in the wrong direction.
A nice chap in the mill said they could trim it all up for us for a reasonable price, and that we could pick it up the next day.
“Let me take a quick look at it,” he said. We walked to the truck and he looked at the fat pile of wood. He dusted off one of the boards with his gloved hand.
“Get it out of here!” he said. “It’s all full of Powder Post Beetles. If we unload that at this lumber mill that’s all full of great wood, it would be like taking a match to a gasoline refinery.”
He showed us the telltale holes, channels and sawdust left by the wood-chomping critters.
“You could take it to a steam-fired kiln and have those bugs cooked to death, but it would be expensive--and it is 2 hours away. Your wood would still be full of holes, though,” he said.
Back in the truck again, we were now faced with getting rid of a load of worthless lumber. As Shifty drove, I called a landfill. Yes, they’d take it.
Another hour in the truck and we were at the landfill, tossing big board after big board into a huge dumpster. They charged us $80.
Thirty more minutes in the truck. Shifty called to thank Mitch for the wood and to tell him that he needed to find a way to get rid of the other half of the pile.
A waste of time, money and gasoline? Naw. We laughed a lot.
Sometimes, misadventures are as much fun as adventures.
Jim Whitehouse lives in Albion.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Jim Whitehouse: Working out the bugs in quest for free lumber
