My son is living proof: Working with the hands can enrich the mind

I am really disturbed about the idea of eliminating woodshop and other technical classes in high schools, to say nothing of art and music classes.

There are a lot of students who express themselves with their hands as well as their minds, and to see avenues of expression of natural creativity taken away is wasteful as well as frustrating.

Anyone who watches "This Old House" on Channel 6 can see the results of technical skills in the rebuilding and remodeling projects this team of master craftsmen undertake, and to watch them work carefully and knowledgeably with wood, stone, electricity, water, and outside landscaping can be a delight.

Of course, they have the best tools going, which helps!

There was a recent New York Times review of a book by Richard Sennett, "The Craftsman." The book cites a lot of examples showing how the work of the hand can inform the work of the mind. Sennett contends that "learning to work well enables people to govern themselves and so become good citizens," and that "nearly anyone can become a good craftsman." Or craftswoman, for that matter. Sewing, knitting, cooking, gardening — all these are crafts, too.

The book intrigues me (there were lots more excerpts in the review) but it has 326 pages, which is daunting!

We don't take the time much anymore to erect buildings with elaborate mansard roofs or the sculptured detail over doors and windows that made them art objects as well as dwellings, and churches no longer have the sculptured columns and groined arches they had in days gone by. True, modern architects design some pretty remarkable buildings, but they don't seem built to last.

Speaking of craftsmen brings to mind my second son, who shares a birthday with me, and who has now turned 59. I wrote about my first son when he turned 60, and planned to write about each of my children on their 60th birthdays, but figuring the vagaries and probabilities of writing about the last one, Second Daughter, when I turned 90 gave me pause, and I decided to move up the recognitions.

Second Son has retired after some 30 years with the U.S. Post Office, the last 14 of which he spent as postmaster in Wilseyville. He began in the Stockton P.O. when he was going to Delta College and came back to it after a two-year stint in the Army, which included a stay in Augsburg, Germany. (A church there has the oldest stained glass windows in Europe.)

It was at our birthday celebration in 1990 or so that he announced his appointment to the Wilseyville P.O., given to him by the U.S. Postmaster who was in Stockton at the time. Since he has been in the Wilseyville/West Point area, he and his wife have become very involved with the community, serving on the scholarship committee for the area high school and supporting a number of other community projects.

They were the instigators of one of the favorite groups in the annual Lumberjack Days parade in West Point: the Lawn Chair Brigade.

The Brigade is a group of about eight or 10 people who carry and perform a routine with the old lightweight aluminum lawn chairs with webbing-the kind that are hard to find these days. Routines are carefully practiced, and each year there is a different theme: "The Wizard of Oz," Cuban dancers, a Blast from the Past (hippies), tuxedos paired with West Point T-shirts. They have their own appropriate music to perform to.

Music and sound effects have become one of Second Son's skills — along with cutting each winter's wood for the stove, repairing Volkswagens and using his considerable carpentry skills to build things for his neighbors and his family. He has become very involved with the little theatres in West Point and Volcano: acting, building sets, producing sound effects. The patience it takes — and the time — to get just the right sound effect by using bits and pieces from all kinds of sources is prodigious. Fortunately, he has a lot of CDs and equipment which make this possible. It often takes hours to produce a few seconds of the right sound effect.

I get to see him each first Thursday when he is on his way home after a reunion breakfast of retired P.O. people in Stockton. Usually, there is something that needs fixing or repositioning or something and I am grateful for his willing help. He has been so busy since his retirement that I wonder how he ever found time to work!

But I know how that goes.

Gwin Mitchell Paden has been a Lodi resident since 1957. She has had careers in advertising, the WAC, news, and teaching and has been active in community work.