Library Dust

New Baby

Below you will find a picture of my new motorcycle, or rather, my almost-new old motorcycle. This is a Honda Nighthawk CB 750, born in 1996 and ridden a scant 1,200 miles since then, though it has gone through at least three owners--some apparently holding it only a few hours.

This is one of the many 750 Fours that Honda manufactured, each of them utterly reliable and practically bombproof.  I looked for one like this a long time before discovering her at an online auction for a pittance--the listing was so vague that few others thought to bid on the bike. 

As found the machine has some rust in its gas tank, a bit of grime and congestion in the carbs.  I dispatched it to the repair shop today for a tuneup and also to have a center-stand installed.  You may expect regular reports of progress.   I asked friends what I should name it and the best return so far has been "Yellow Peril."  I'll stick to that unless a better name comes along.  

Half a Dozen Done

About a year ago I volunteered to refinish a set of chairs for a friend who lives out of town.  Refinishing is one of my pastimes.  I do the best I can to let other people think I’m being nice to them but the truth is that I enjoy working with decent wood furniture: that’s the real lure of it. 

I was not really in the way of doing half a dozen chairs.  The most I’d ever done in that line was four, and those were rather easy all told.  These chairs were different and I can only hope that you have the patience to find out how and why.

Patience is at the heart of furniture refinishing.  There is no way to rush the job and no reason at all to do it with any regularity if one only seeks, say, to freshen the varnish on an old bureau.  This sort of work is not done for the result but for the process—and the process is slow.  One proceeds gradually, in small bits of time which together move the thing and the worker along toward completion together.  Completion, in this case, of a single chair, with five others waiting their turn behind.

The first phase of this is assessment: one sees first the material; after that what can be done, and then what can and ought to be done.  Sometimes nothing is possible.  Nearly always there are surprises lurking beneath the old finish. 

The question with these chairs was what lay beneath the ancient sticky dark gunk that had been ladled upon their base wood.  It was obvious that nobody would want the original covering replaced.  I noted a very dark stain mixed with a cheap polyurethane and upon that spattered black paint intended as camouflage—but for what defects? 

The chemical stripper revealed cheap pine wood and awkward joining, knots and imperfections.  I felt bad that the base wood was so poor, but it came to seem like a down at the heels gent who only wants a new suit to shine again.  And so he got his clothing.  Slowly, of course, and over many nights and weekend days. 

I have friends who play musical instruments.  They tell me that each note brings a thrill of pleasure.  So it is with restoring furniture.  A stroke of a blade strips away old grime and cover, revealing a sinuous line of wood grain whose curves speak of a tree bending in a winter storm; in another place the growth lines testify in their own voices: here is a rich, fat summer; there two hard, dry years; a reprieve followed by more hard times—such is life, for a tree and ourselves.  But the tree is more honest, wearing its burdens and glories in the lumber and then in the chair-seat.

Stripped bare and sanded, coarse and then fine, the wood waits dryly for the gloss of varnishing.  Then at last the surface sends its voice to the skies, as the least and slightest feature rises along with the most impressive to dazzle the passing eye.  Cleared of grime and the wrong coating, the chair now invites us to sit upon a piece of the forest, a real, almost live thing: warm, friendly, accommodating. 

It is to bring out this personality that people rescue old furniture.  And of course, to feel the joy in each stroke of the tools.  The six chairs will now surround a dining room table, each telling its story, with luck, for generations to come. 

For a Friend who has Lost a Father

These Fathers Passed

 

Wishing so much in the vacuum of night

That the old man could have gone through

A century of middle age

With me as witness and partner despite

And even with the ragged flaws and chill

Of our misunderstood hours.

 

Bricks parted with a sharp deft blow

Then set flat in mortar

With me his soaker there bewitched

Kneeling to receive his wish

Another one, now watch here this—

He lived to level out disorder.

 

Yours is gone now too.

 

What place is there for these men

Such fathers as we once possessed?

Mine vanished as I turned away

Yours took his ample time

But their indent is of endless depth

And we step with care at that precipice.

 

No word describes the allness of his reign

No phrase to compass in his gifts

No cry so deep as to reveal our loss

Though the call rends dark and needful night

For as long as nights there are.

 

 

Restoration

Over the years I have restored quite a few tables, chairs and wooden what-nots salvaged from thrift stores, attics and occasionally, the curb or a trash bin.  All I have to show for it is a single drop-leaf table.  Therest of the stuff goes to friends.  This is not so much out of generosity as from self-preservation: nobody has the kind of room for that much furniture.

Most of my rescues date from the thirties through the early sixties of the last century.  The reason for this is simple: there is nothing worthy of preservation after that period and very little available from before. The lifespan of a chair or bureau is perhaps thirty years if the piece was well-constructed and not abused too badly. The only material that survives long-term use is hardwood, and hardwood is largely a thing of the past.  Your grandmother’s hutch might have been constructed entirely of maple or oak; your mother’s hope chest from veneers of those woods; your own kitchen table is likely of plastic, metal, veneer or inexpensive soft wood, if wood it is at all.  The modern craze for painted wood furniture arises from the fact that most of the modern wood supply is not beautiful in itself; that and the fact that it is cheaper and much easier to slop on paint than to deal with the vagaries of a material whose appearance can vary considerably from piece to piece.

Maybe you have been fortunate enough to have had grandma give you her table and chairs.  Perhaps there were eight to the set but one of them is lame and another cracked through the seat.  Even so you are lucky to have the remainder, for such things are now scarcities and even new ones, when available, are expensive and moreover lack the character of age. 

Old chairs and tables creak and groan under loads.  This is because they are pieced together in the old-fashioned way, which is to say, correctly.  The old sailing ships were essentially wooden puzzles whose pieces were intended to shift and flex, to “work” against and with one another.  Grandma’s chairs were likely joined without screws or nails, their pieces simply thrust into one another, perhaps wedged here and there. They will let you know when the humidity drops and also tell you that they are, like grandma, shrinking with age, their bones withdrawing to the smallest possible compass as moisture departs the cells of the old lumber.

I have in my shop a pair of old chairs—made during my own youth and so certainly along in years—that tell the story of such things.  I got both of them at the local thrift store but several weeks apart.  The chair to the right with the small arms is at least sixty years old.  For its day it was considered inexpensive but adequate; the wood seems to be maple and the construction fairly good.  The arms aren’t held on very well but haven’t failed yet—I will have to reinforce them. 

The other chair also seems to be maple.  It has a deeper “honey” finish and a dished seat.  Note that both chairs’ seats are made of several glued pieces.  A chair of this type with a one-piece seat would indicate a much earlier time of manufacture and would be more valuable, but I like to see the different pieces of wood together and their contrasting grain structures show up well when given
a transparent finish.

Both of these chairs were sticky-gummy.  This was from the oil polish used by their owners and the deterioration of the original finishes, which tend to separate into their constituent parts, especially under heat. 

 

These chairs ended up at the thrift store in the same way.  On the bottom of each chair was a sticker from a van and moving company.  Some person moved these chairs to storage and then abandoned them to their fate, which was to be sold at auction.  Neither of them sold.  Apparently they were written off and trucked to the Salvation Army store where I found them. 

There were other chairs along with these but they were either hopeless cripples (“functionally challenged”) or not of the type I like to deal with. 

Here you see what the wood of the first chair looks like after chemical and mechanical stripping, sanding and scraping.  This represents about five or six hours of work, or as I say, about two ball games.  I listen to baseball on the radio and this piece has taken me through two Dodger losses so far. 

Chemical stripping is as nasty as it is effective.  The only good thing about the process is that it does no damage to the wood and takes less time.  Even so these pieces will require a good deal of careful hand-sanding before they are ready for whatever finish I decide to apply.  This is where restoration becomes something of an art. 

Chairs like these will require at least three different grades of sandpaper, a few scraping blades and many different techniques, none of which have proper names.  There is no way to teach the way to smooth wood.  The best that can be said is that each piece is different and that the whole thing is done by feel. 

Usually the stripped piece is fairly smooth already, unless (as is the case with these chairs) usage has been such that there are dents and other flaws to deal with.  Chairs reveal their histories quite plainly.  People bang them about, set their heels on the rungs, and grind objects into their surfaces.  Some of this can be removed but the rest has to be shrugged away, simply left as a reminder of heritage.

If you do not like sanding wood you will not like finishing furniture.  Mind you, by this I mean hand sanding.  No machine can do this properly.  We are not finishing planks or flooring here but a complex piece whose features include cuts, bends, curves, rods and scallops.  Take a machine sander to this and you will end up with kindling.  No, you’ve got to deal with this with your palms and fingers.

I like to use “shop rolls” of sandpaper, ribbons of various grit coarseness that can be wound around a chair leg.  Of course I use standard sheets, mainly of 150-220 grit.  Your smart refinisher buys his sandpaper in bulk to save money.  Where possible I use metal scrapers.  This is risky business but done with care gives good results. 

Is this work enjoyable? That depends on what you like to do.  If you are of the type who enjoys hand work you may want to give this a whirl.  I suggest good lighting and classical music as essentials, especially for those nights when the Dodgers are not playing well.

Come on by some evening. I’ll be in the garage making sawdust.

 

Time Out

I somehow found myself in a big-box grocery over the weekend, one of those concrete bazaars where every item is sold by the gross—a term which applies equally to premises and patrons. I was talked into going by a relation who had need of a few sundries—nothing that couldn't wait, if you're asking me.

The crowd was tight, surly and pushy. It was the very worst day to be in such a place and perhaps the worst hour, with every shopper seeking what ought to have been sought earlier if at all. The mode of movement in such places is trampling: one tramples others or is himself trampled down. It is simply a riot of people pushing metal carts.

And so with the rest I trampled my way along through the store, displacing others in order to make a place for myself like a microbe in a great teeming pond. Eventually my friend found what she sought along one of the aisles—God knows how—and we more or less made progress toward the exit, pushing and being pushed all the way.

I decided to take a shortcut through the dairy section and found myself in a huge refrigerator piled high with boxes of milk. Exiting the way I came I realized I had lost my companion, but figured she would end up at our car and so decided to make way for the parking lot. And then I noticed the freezer.

It was a separate structure, big as a house, with sides of glass doors through which could be viewed all manner of frozen goods: everything from soups to ice cream and all of it solid as rock. At the narrow end was a doorway covered with transparent plastic strips to keep out the heat of the store. One could see perfectly through the plastic to the rear of the shelves. Above the entry was a sign:

Freezer Box

Caution

Ten Below Zero

 

Outside the freezer I saw a little boy, perhaps three or four, seated in a shopping cart. His brother, maybe six, hung on the cart's handle wearing a bored expression. The parents were nowhere to be seen. At any rate, the smaller boy said to his brother, "I want down." He said this twice and, receiving no reply, reached down and gave his brother a slap on the head. The older boy shot the younger one a hard look and without hesitation pushed the cart backward through the plastic barrier of the freezer box. He then departed for warmer weather, leaving the other alone inside.

The difference in temperature had to be about 85 degrees. The boy sat upright, looked around himself and got a look that said 'I'm about to die.' Stuck there in his tee shirt and shorts, he absorbed the wash of frigid air for a few long moments before opening his mouth to shout at the plastic curtains. All I could hear was the whir of the compressors as they pumped more cold over the groceries. I let this go on for a few seconds and then retrieved the grocery cart from the arctic wastes. The little boy said nothing. His brother came over to claim his sibling and the event was done.

I imagine there was some interesting conversation on the ride home that day.

Family Portraits

Some of you might not have met my family.  It consists of me and my dogs, whom I refer to as Satan's Apprentices. 

Here is Tulip helping me around the house.

That is my shirt she is using for a blanket.  She likes my shirts because they smell like me and because she can lord it over her sister when the other dog doesn't have one. 

This is Rosie, who obviously has her own shirt.  Most of the time they bid me goodbye in the morning after receiving a treat, then tuck in for a few extra hours of rest before beginning their routine of useless barking, floor-licking and waiting for the next meal. 

Tulip is a Cairn Terrier; Rosie is a Westie.  They love me dearly and vice-versa.  If you also have animals like these I extend my sympathies. 

Cidering

Today I racked a new cider to a glass secondary.  What that means is that I put a half-finished hard apple cider into another container because the yeast had partially settled and I wanted to get the liquid off the old yeast and into a place where it could "finish" nicely. 

I make cider from time to time.  Usually my recipe consists of pure apple juice and either a commercial champagne yeast or a cider yeast.  I find little difference between the two except that the latter seems to produce a softer taste. 

Before brewing beer became common, and even while ale was being made by George Washington, most American families made their own apple cider.  They did it because they could and they could because apples were plentiful.  Johnny Appleseed didn't plant those trees for piemaking.  He set down the seeds so that people could have hard cider.  

  

The image above is of the half-clarified cider after racking to the secondary fermenter, which is really just a five-gallon water bottle.   The picture below shows the primary fermenter with the settled or "flocculated" yeast on the bottom. 

 

I expect this batch to be ready in a few weeks.  I could actually drink it now but I'd like it to gain some character.  

I have another batch going now, a half-cider/half-fruit juice blend that should have an interesting taste.  I'll keep you posted. 

Carrying On

We are officially done with the Great Recession, but for many of us the decline that began in 2007 will never end: there were too many lost jobs, foreclosures, ruined finances and gutted retirements to recover from completely.

Library workers were hit by personal impacts of the decline, but the industry was also struck hard by the contraction in local government revenue and the resultant contraction in library budgets. Hiring, which had picked up in the years prior, plummeted; positions emptied by retirement were not filled; staffing was cut to the bone and beyond. Workers were laid off or furloughed. The benefits and growth of that brief spell of "good times" were effectively erased in many systems.

Along with the recession came a war on public employment itself. Aspiring politicians were quick to tar public workers, and especially those in union jobs. Many states passed laws restricting or eliminating collective bargaining by public sector workers. The combination of hard times and attacks by political opportunists hurt the library and its people. The past half-decade will not be recalled as a halcyon period for the institution or the profession.

The public library is like a man who has survived pneumonia but lost a lung in the fight. Every breath reminds her of what's been lost—and there is still the old job to do, including whatever challenges the future may bring. Some of that future is here, and the rest is on the way. We face a Tomorrow replete with E-tools, E-applications, E-objects and functions, many of which will head the demand list of our patrons moments after reaching the marketplace. Some of these will crash down on the library, live out a brief spell of techno-life before obsolescence and be replaced by their own children in a few months. The future motto of the public library will be "Whatever." And if the library fails to add these gimcracks to its inventory, petty savants will declare it obsolete and unworthy of funding.

[Meanwhile we will have to maintain traditional services, including and especially with regard to books. Many people and not a few librarians persist in believing that the library is a place for books—the type made of paper and binding. Until that sort is rounded up and put in camps the book will remain the focus of the library, literally, figuratively and financially, and I'm not betting on its demise any time soon. If you don't believe this, think of the response that occurs when your Internet service goes down. Now imagine patrons arriving to find no books on the shelves. You can find the Internet floating through the ether in a coffee shop, a bar or a hotel lobby. Nobody keeps books like the library—nobody that lends them, anyhow.]

I have seen some remarkable adaptations by public libraries in the face of post-Recession challenges—and I call them "challenges" only because "tragedies" has too grim a sound. The public library is challenged in the same way a man with one leg is challenged to walk. He will only be a cripple if he doesn't try, and the library is trying. Trying with fewer administrators; with fewer librarians: with far less money but no fewer patrons your public library is pulling off a loaves-and-fishes routine every hour the doors are open. You notice gaps and patches. There are places where the term "librarian" means "whoever's at the desk." One may and often will pay dearly for interlibrary loan. Worse than anything, hiring is depressed, which means we are shortchanging the next generation of workers. A job delayed is often a job denied. Even librarians have to eat.

The good news is that we've been here before. The most important thing the library preserves is itself. In my town we think of the Tournament of Roses as the historical soul of the city, but the library is older—older even than the City's incorporation. Even the venerable Central Library is merely the third structure to serve that purpose. The same story is told in thousands of other places.

We will survive as we do survive: because libraries do the right job in the right way. Libraries offer a valuable product for practically nothing to anyone who desires it. Nothing beats that bargain and nobody does it better than the people for whom the work is so very important. With that in mind and in heart we move onward, the fates willing, to better times.

Sunday, Pasadena

I spent a part of this Sunday afternoon visiting the Central Library of the Pasadena System.  As usual the place was jammed with patrons.  The reading room had hardly an empty seat, the downstairs internet lounge was full--and there are quite a few stations there.  It was a joy to behold.

I only wish that the building itself was more accomodating.  Built the same year that Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, the place is ornate, storied, and difficult: an old lady stuck in her ways.  Going downstairs to either the computer room or the magazine storage invariably makes a person feel as though he might never get out alive.  The passageway is too narrow, the room confining.  It has the feel of a converted basement and all the appearance of same.  [By the way, the parking lot was overflowing with spot-seekers and all the metered parking taken as well.  Far from being a good sign, this simply indicates that there are not enough spaces for the carriage trade.]

Going from one place to another in that library is like finding a tomb in a pyramid.  My habit is to simply reach the New Books shelves on the ground floor and content myself with their offerings. 

Of course, criticism of the place is not received well by some citizens, but I would venture that none of those folks use the place with any regularity or work there.  It is no fun trying to do research in an historical monument. 

I don't think that Pasadena Central will ever be razed--nor should it be.  What the town needs is simply another large library, situated in the same area, which can fulfill the functions of a modern library while the venerable lady on Walnut Street is preserved for some library function and perhaps other municipal duties. 

I picked up two books today from the new offerings shelf and once again confirmed the value of the place.  Not only does Central have a constant flow of new reading but the staff remains what it has always been:  first-class in every regard.  The clerical staff flies around helping patrons as if their lives depended upon it, and the librarians--well, I could praise them but they are my friends and would never forgive me. 

Of bad books there is no end

Sometimes hard news must be shared.  I relate the sad story of my recent library acquisitions, of which half-dozen fully four were unreadable junk, with one being passable and the last a fine specimen of nonfiction literature.

Rather than grind on the merits of the failed books individually, I will say that they had in common two of the more common failings of such in our day.

First, bad writing.  Much of what I see these days looks like a compendium of clippings rather than a coherent book, worthy of that name.  We are accustomed to bad fiction--and of the tendency to excuse various flaws as being merely aspects of style, but in nonfiction the badly written book stands out like a dead carp in the public fountain.

A book is a tool with a mission.  The role of fiction is merely to tell a story and to entertain thereby.  This provides for a wide latitude of methods and outcomes.  The job of nonfiction is to inform--not without difficulty in the reading but without pain arising from the faulty use of the tools of grammar and usage, not to mention arrangement.

Many serious nonfiction books suffer from poor structure, from individual sentences right up to the weakness of chapters to cohere, either internally or in relation to one another.  This signifies poor effort by the writer or the lack of mastery of the art--the trade, more accurately, of writing.

Second we have the failure of editing.  An editor cannot write the book for the author and can hardly rescue a poor book from its fate, but there is no excuse for the sort of mess that comes away from even reputable publishing houses--and university presses--these days.  We are not talking about the occasional error here but in what appears to be the lack of definite care in the analysis of a submitted work, combined with the failure to correct, excise and omit where needed. 

I take it that some of these presses are unwilling to reject bad work and also lack the sort of editing help that could spare the reader a migraine. 

What galls me is that the jacket blurbs for some of the very worst books provide frothy ecstasies of praise--one wonders if they were even read by the writers of these prevarications.

But all is not hard cheese hereabouts.  I have begun two batches of cider and will report results later.