Hanging an Axe

Ok, so it is a hatchet, really.  Which I learned that I should never use, when I was passing my axe test with Dave Martin at TL in 1983.  The problem with a hatchet is that one can use it with only one hand.  Which leaves the other hand free to get chopped by the blade.  

I should never be trusted with such a tool, given my history with axes.  Ok, so that was a splitting maul, really, but I didn't follow my Woodsman axe test rules, and it got me into a lot of trouble (didn't it, Dutcher?).  But I digress.

This is a little hatchet, quite the opposite of that maul that I tangled with so many years ago.  We bought it last summer, or the summer before, in a moment of weakness while camping in Vermont.  It is made by Collins, and it has a cool hammer head on the back side that is for driving wooden pegs, I'm sure.  Oh, and a little notch in the bottom of the blade, the purpose of which I really cannot guess.

Anyway, last summer I tried to use the hatchet like an axe, and broke the handle.  I almost didn't bring it home, but my pack rat instincts got the better of me and I hauled it back.  Today, in a fit of preparation, I bought a hickory handle for it.  Tonight, when all else was quiet, I went downstairs to hang it (meaning put the handle and the head together) and the memories came flooding back...

First, of course, of Grandpa's shop in the Adirondacks.  Where most of my tools come from, and my earliest memories of woodworking.  The rasp that I ended up using tonight is very likely the same one that I used to shape so many swords and rubber band guns while under his (and Dad's) watchful eye.  Grandpa, did you know that shaping a wooden sword would prepare me for fitting handle to head?  I bet you did.  And I love you for it.  So quietly preparing for the next step, even as you complete this one with focus and care.  

Next to the old Packard shed at TL, where I learned to hang and sharpen an axe.  The cool shade and the dirt floor of that old tumbledown building are etched in my memory, so much so that when I sharpen a forestry tool in broad daylight I am still a bit confused.  To feel really at home, I suppose I should splash green paint across the cheek of this thing.  Oh, and I need a bucket of linseed oil to finish the job properly.  

Third to the campcraft area of TL, which at that point was out beyond the meeting circle.  Dave took a few of us out there to learn about axes.  I didn't know I was being tested, of course, until Dave said "you pass".  "What?" I asked.  "You passed your axe test" he explained.  Classic Dave.  Didn't even give me a chance to get nervous, just taught until we were done.  Of course, it was days later, still, that I learned that that quiet, friendly, expert man was running the place!  

All this should feel like distant memories.  I mean, I'm now old enough that my son Jonas is getting letters from camp from his friend Reid, who was a camper there this summer (thanks, Reid, he loved it!).  And other friends are asking about Farm and WIlderness, wondering if it would be a match for their kids.  And unless my math is really faulty, I'm older now than Dad was on that fateful day with the splitting maul (14 + 22, right, Dad?).  But the rip of the rasp through the handle, and the feel of the wedge sinking in, telescopes time quite effectively.  

One more day of prep, and that little hatchet will go with us on a grand swing through Maine and southern Vermont.  I will use it more carefully, this time.  Like a hatchet instead of an axe.  And maybe next summer we will take it to the 'dacks!