August 4, 2008
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Carpenter...
This afternoon on of the things that was said about the Lord Jesus was that he was a carpenter. By the Romans and Greeks this job was not in high esteem. Imagine being a carpenter... it brought back some memories later this afternoon.
When I was in High School I had to make a choice about what to do when I would be a big boy... At that moment a music study in organ/piano would be the obvious choice. However, there were many organists and many organs and a decline in church attendance already then. Organist of name, such as Piet van Egmond, Feike Asma, the Zwarts, Klaas Jan Mulder, etc. were followed by a generation of countless good organists... I decided that I would not be good enough to make a difference and I went into a School of Business in Rotterdam.
This school was (privately) founded by business people and there were also organbuilders amongst them. Therefore there was an option to specialize in organ building. I never choose this specialization. I spend my last two of the four years with Business Management, English and programming of CNC machines and computers. (Organs are built like high class ship interiors and the skills and craftmanship I could appreciate, but I could not see myself do that the rest of my life...)
I can't turn the clock back (and become a professional musician instead), but looking back, I don't regret what I was led to do... I have learned a lot and I could give back a lot too.
It is impossible to build my own home pipe organ or harpsichord (yet some people pull it off...!), a few years ago I really wanted to prove to myself that I could make some wooden organ pipes. From oak of course. It was fun to do and it really worked! I first made a small pipe (1' tall) then a longer one (2' tall). Now I know that I can build 61 of them and even more... just if there was more time...
The small pipe left, the bigger one on the right...
This summer I had fun with powertools and the old reliable chisels again. I built a playhouse for Michael in the back yard. This design is based on Dutch houses from the province Noord-Holland. There are no organ pipes and no piano in the playhouse, but you never know what the next step is. (My father in law did the painting...)
Comments (2)
That's a GREAT playhouse! Danielle would LOVE to play in something like that! You've got great talent!
Good job on those pipes and that playhouse is going to be (already is) the envy of the kids in the neighborhood. Hmmm...when we drive by next time, we are going to have to peek in the window to see if we can see pipes. LOL Sorry, the kids already noticed the playhouse. We usually don't peek in our neighbor's yard.
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