Neanderpundit

I used to love to cut wood. Splitting, sawing, the bite of the axe and the curl of the saw and the smell of the wood was a joy to me. I don’t have the wind to do much of it anymore, but I still enjoy it.

Part of the reason I enjoyed it so much then, was I had run across a real master. This guy could do things wiht an axe that amazed me. He was in his 80’s then, and his skin had that papyrus texture that old people get- but the muscles in his arms were like whipcords, and his chest was like a brahman bull.

What always amazed me about him were his tools. He had some incredible chisels, each of which was shaving sharp. he had a two man crosscut saw that was… well, it was incredible. it was the most incredible saw I ever used. When he died, I bought it from his estate, and it hangs in my garage still.

The most remarkable tool, however, was the hewing axe.

When I first saw this, I thought it was some wierd broken shit. The head seemed to be attached to the handle at an impossible angle, and the head of the axe was completely flat on one side- the sharpening bevel was all on the opposite side. In addition to this, the handle was bent way off to the left. If you placed head of the axe flat on the floor, the handle came away from the floor at about a 30 degree angle.

I really did think the handle had just sat somewhere and warped for a hundred years, but my friend disavowed me of the notion quickly.

“it’s a squaring axe” he said, and proceeded to demonstrate.

He took about a ten foot piece of oak, about 12″ around, and started hacking away at one side. The axe peeled away bark and wood and in a few minutes he had a flat surface. He then chalked a line, and standing on the top of the log, cut to the line with a single bitted axe. he took the squaring axe and flattened that side, and continued until he had a more-or less square beam.
This took about twenty minutes, total.

He’d built barns in his youth, hewing and squaring beams, he’d split and hewed railroad ties. he was an artist with an axe, and he did things with that offset blade I would have thought impossible. here’s a description of the job, showing a guy using a squaring axe.

I told you that story to tell you this one.

Pascal talks about Wretchard talking about the Fasces.

The fasces- the single ax, whose flank is surrounded by straight, true rods, bound by the common interest, was the symbol of our young Republic. Ben Franklin wisely chose it, and it is part and parcel of our national symbolism.

The Fasces has also been used as the symbol for Fascism, first by the italians, and this is where the symbolism starts to fit.

The axe of the Fascists is a bent and twisted one, suited only to the purpose of hewing left, ever more left. As the Fasces of the USA has become more and more left leaning, the original straight rods that protected the axe’s handle, either bent to follow the ever more left leaning axe, or broke, and were discareded from the bundle, replaced with more leftists.

When I think of the Republic today, it is not represented by the arrow straight axe of the Republic, surrounded by jack-straight rods of birch, but the indiscriminate left leaning broad hewing axe, surrounded by limp willows or ever more left leaning boughs, tied toghether- as one of the original commentors stated, with cords of hate. hatred for the true and the straight, for they themselves cannot be, having tied themselves to the twisteed axe of fascism.

I shouldn’t drink and post, really.

More: Pascal suggests- and very correctly so- that the metaphor casts unwarranted aspersions on the hewing axe, an intrinsically useful item. Yes, it does- to use it as a metaphor for this is to slander an honest tool. My apologies to the hewing axe- and a sincere thank you for the loan of your off center head and bent handle for the metaphor.

I wore them all day today (well, not to church) and I have to say this:

Why the hell would anyone ever want to wear anything else?

I’m gonna try to get some work boots/shoes like this to wear.

I was concerned with the snugness, but in fact, they gave me support I didn’t expect- in fact, I think the wider shoes were actually causing me trouble, by allowing the bones of my foot to splay out. My feet feel wonderful.

The garden wasn’t exactly muddy, but the clay tended to get stuck in the cleats. So I’m going to be buying myself a pair of these.

Tilled the terrace. Cut the wires to the malibu lights in the process, but what the hell.

Have to go plant now. Going to do beans and peas, though it’s not actually a good day till wednesday. May put in some beets too. Feels good to be turning the ground.