Jean and I are frequent visitors at antiques shops and malls. We often find treasures there that end up either in our house or in my own antiques booth. I love to find items I can rebuild, refinish or repurpose and then pass them on to someone else.
Recently, we discovered an antiques mall up in Centre, Alabama, that has a vendor who sells wood. I’m going to go ahead and raise my hand and confess that I am addicted to wood. Maybe it is because my mother’s maiden name was Wood, but I get as excited about a beautiful piece of wood as Jean does about a beautiful dish or two (dozen). When I find good hardwoods, like oak, walnut or hickory, they are usually quite expensive; however, this vendor up in Centre had some at really reasonable prices. The only problem that day was that we were in our little Ford Escape and the pieces he had were too long to fit in it. So, we headed on back home without any of his wood. We also headed on back home without Jean’s purse. We called the restaurant where we had eaten and sure enough, they had it there…no, not the wood, but Jean’s purse. That gave us a good excuse to drive back up there in a few days.
I considered pulling my trailer up there to haul back a few pieces of wood, but instead I just threw my little battery-powered saw in the Escape. I planned to cut the boards short enough to haul, but still long enough to make some beautiful guitar necks or glue up for some gorgeous tabletops. My little saw said, “Not me! I’m not cutting through 2-inch thick dried oak.” One of the workers there loaned me an electric skil saw, but about halfway through the board, it developed a smoking problem. No, not tobacco, but oak. I had already paid for the wood, and now owed for a burned-up saw, too. He was gracious about the saw and even tagged my wood so I could come back and get it later. I knew I would be back that way soon, because my high school class was planning a reunion in Fort Payne in a couple of weeks. I could take my trailer and go through Centre and pick up my wood, without even making an extra trip.
I hooked up my trailer the evening before, so I would be ready to roll early the next day. During the night, something else rolled in and it was pouring down rain the next morning. My trailer is not enclosed, and wood tends to bow when it gets wet. I didn’t have any plans for building a table with bowed legs! Not to be outdone, I decided to take a tarp and strap it over the wood and pray for a rainbow. The prayer worked! We stopped for breakfast about an hour up the road. While I hummed, “Who’ll stop the rain,” and sopped some gravy with a biscuit, God answered that question and my prayer, so my wood wouldn’t be sopping water and warping! I never saw the rainbow, but we never saw any more rain that day either.
I did see my classmates, but at first, I thought I had gone to the wrong room. Everyone in there was old, but then I realized I’m old, too! Sometimes things don’t always go as planned, but often times they work out just fine anyway. Thank God for class reunions, located purses, trailers and tarps, windshield wipers when we need them and dry straight wood when we don’t!
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com or 334-728-5514 (office).
