Work sometimes has an odd way of boomeranging, as I learned twice last week.

 

Last Saturday, I was listening as usual to “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,” the comedy news-quiz program on National Public Radio. This week’s guest was William H. Macy, the noted actor. As the show’s host, Peter Sagal, noted, Macy is also “an enthusiastic and dedicated woodworker” who has been on the cover of Fine Woodworking magazine. To be precise, he was on the cover of Wood Turning Basics, a newsstand-only special issue we published in 2007. I had the pleasure of spending a day with Macy in his shop, talking with him about his passion for turning bowls for an article in the special issue.

 

“That was the only cover I’ve ever had,” Macy exclaimed. “I almost had the cover two years before,” he added, “but I was bumped out by a chain saw.”

 

Earlier in the week, my wife and I were watching the latest episode of “Antiques Roadshow” on PBS. The first item up for appraisal was a pear-shaped tea caddy from the early 1800s, not unlike a reproduction I recently made. The appraiser pointed out something I hadn’t known: The original tea caddies all have a small bung in the bottom, closed with a wood plug, but no one knows why.

 

I immediately went online to try to find out more about this bung, and Googled “pear shaped tea caddies.” Imagine my surprise to find that two of the blogs I wrote about making the reproduction are the first items that show up in the search. It’s nice to know someone’s out there reading our stuff.