Neanderpundit

But a thought.

Apprentices were given tasks to do, or chose tasks for themselves, to prove they had finished their apprenticeship. That’s the origin of the term “Masterpiece”. A Master piece, is the piece of work you do to prove you are a Master of your art, and no longer an apprentice.

I could have been a master cabinetmaker. I could probably have been a master farrier. I am a master millwright, and industrial electrician. those two courses of stufy, I did finish, and have my journeyman’s cards to this day. My masterpiece as a millwright was a robotic system that makes the timing gears for the Ford power Stroke engine. I designed and built it from the ground up, programmed it, tested it, and put it in operation. What, twelve years ago? A long time ago. My masterpiece as an industrial electrician was a similar system which also included random part capability. That too is at least ten years behind me. I still have those skills, still improve on them and develop them- but I have literally hundreds of other skills, or sub-disciplines, and I use them all the time.

So looking on my life, not as a series of apprenticeships but as a master jack-of-all-trades, I think, if I were to use all the skills I have, at which I’m better than average, what would my masterpiece be?

I can pour concrete. I could build a house. Roof it. Plumb it. Wire it. Furnish it. Paint it. (I’ll leave the drywall work to someone else) carpet it. Put in a fireplace.

I can cast steel and Iron. And machine it. And assemble it into an internal combustion engine. I can do some forging, though I’m rusty at it. I can weld, burn, cut. I can braze and solder.

I do my own gunsmithing. I have repaired/rebarreled/reblued firearms, I’m in the process of building a rifling lathe. I can reload my own brass, and I have cast my own bullets on many occasions.

I have some knowledge of computers, networking, interfacing. I can program a robot or machine tool. I can wire them, test them, make them work, write code that is line-by line written for maximum efficiency.

I can do leather work- in fact, I’m looking hard at making myself a pair of handmade boots. I learned to do ropework so young that if you hand me a four foor section of rope, and talk to me for ten minutes, I’ll put half a dozen splices into it and hand it back as a sling, or bridal, or rope harness, and not even think about it.

I have a lot of skills I have accumulated over the years- so many, now, that as I write this, I cannot think of them all. Every time I think I have it down, I remember something else- and in fact I’ve already truncated this post by five paragraphs.

I started writing this post to ask others, if you used all your skills to make a “Masterpiece”, of what would it consist? And now, I realize, the masterpiece you create, is your mind.

that recipients of one of Uncle Sam’s patent devices get “this side toward enemy” imprinted on their skin just brefore the pellets arrive, or is it all blasted at once?

Dick? This one kept me up. You’re the one that mentioned claymore, you know more than any of us, lemme know so’s I can sleep tonight.

If it’s racist to say “white church” it’s racist to say “Black church”.

I go to a Christian church. Christian principles are not exclusive of anyone. If your church is “Black” it’s not only Racist, it is by definition, not Christian. Pound sand.