Name:
Location: Seattle, Washington, United States

What you have here is an old guy. In education for 30 years, started teaching elementary, ended as library and media director of community college. I've enjoyed mountain climbing, sports car rallying, was pipe major of a bagpipe band, played guitar and sang during the folk revival, walking and hiking later in life. Now fairly sedentary. Enjoy reading, esp. mysteries and fantasy, but my reading is pretty eclectic. Enjoy movies, giving Netflix a workout.

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Happy New Year, Kerf

First off, let me wish each and every one of my readers (both of you) a Very Happy New Year. May it hold for you everything you want. As for me, it won't. Every year I ask for a red Jaguar and a million dollars. Never Happens! Oh, well.

I spent a few days at my cabin up near Mt. Rainier with some old friends. We've been doing this for beau coup years now and will probably continue to do so until we can no longer stand up. Five guys who hold the knowledge of the world in their brains. Except that we're beginning to forget things as we get older. So we have gathered reference books up there to help us out. The word "kerf" came up somehow and nobody knew what it meant. The wood spews out when a person saws a log or piece of wood. The slit or notch left by the sawblade is the kerf. One friend was really miffed because his Dad was a logger and he should have known the word.

Today I was reading a few pages of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. He mentions an oak tree that was killed by a lightning strike. A year later he sawed it up for firewood. Sure enough, he mentioned the word "kerf." Which only proves that one is never too old to add words to one's vocabulary. Nor to read a classic, which I believe Leopold's Almanac is. I know I should have read it a long time ago. But it's never too late and I am remedying that even now.

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