A woodworking friend once told me how he’d spent the days following the assassination of President John Kennedy. Numb with sadness, my friend retreated to his basement workshop where he built, if I recall the story correctly, a blanket chest for his youngest daughter. For him, the workshop became a sanctuary during those dark days; a place to escape from a world that seemed to have spun off its axis.

Recently, I was reminded of that story while watching the evening news on television. The broadcast was yet another report on the economic downturn. The key words of the story have been all too common these days: crisis, layoff, greed, bankruptcy, downturn, unemployment, billions, and trillions. I quickly found myself thinking like my friend did way back in November 1963. I needed to get into the workshop.

In the workshop, at least for a while, troubles can go in the scrap bin. The shop has a way of sharpening your focus on the task at hand. After all, it’s difficult to think about anything else but the next step in the building process. Add to that, there’s the physical component of woodworking that’s therapeutic. Indeed, shaping wood with power and hand tools simply feels good sometimes. And, along the way, you get to create something that will be around long after all the bad news has become old news.

Tom Begnal