Well, it was a gift:
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There’s a story behind that. My dad owned and operated a sawmill on the side, apart from his day job, from around 1977 until around 2000 or so.
When health issues forced them to sell the homeplace in about 2021 or so and move into town, we all went through the house, barn, and workshop to pick out what we wanted.
One brother, Paul, he laid claim to most of Dad’s woodworking tools and the loft full of lumber that had been sawed and dried over many, many years. Made sense, because he’s the only one of us who enjoys working with wood.
Out of nowhere, just a few weeks ago, he texted me and said he’d “found some cherry Dad sawed,” and asked if I’d like a pizza peel made from it, so I said sure, and that peel above is the result.
The “rest of the story” (as Paul Harvey would say…if anyone remembers him), is that the reason my brother asked me in the first place is that the cherry he’d found was from a stack dated “Oct ‘84…,” so it’s lumber my dad and I sawed out together (not that I remember that) 40 years ago this month. That’s pretty wild.
I’ll say that Paul is about the most outwardly detached one of us, but still waters run deep, as the saying goes, and I know everything going on with our folks the last few years has really hit him hard. Very thoughtful gift.
I showed it to my Dad yesterday, and his reaction was, “Why, he didn’t bookmatch it! He oughta know better’an ’at! Huh!”
