Slowly it got slimmer and lighter as I ground down a thousandth of an inch at a time. Never done one the right way before so as I come closer to the finished blade I turn chicken, afraid I'll to go too far and grind the blade so thin it'd be transparent. Extraordinarily light but totally useless. Maybe go so far as to zen it into nothing but sawdust. I'd hang the nothingness on the wall with a blank sign beneath and over the years, pause occasionally to admire the purity of my handiwork.
On the other hand the thought occasionally strikes me I could buy a new ash paddle for a little over a hundred bucks. At the moment I've got ten in sand paper, varnish and electricity. When the paddle's done I'll have been paying myself about four to five bucks an hour for something I don't really need. In the tech age handcrafting doesn't pay well. Head to an art fair and ask any of them how much they make per hour. You'll get a fair amount of laughter in response followed by, "I love what I do but still have my day job." Maybe I'll keep making paddles simply to see if I can get faster or even better and then give them away to people who need one even less than I? The idea of pulling up to a busy intersection and handing a homeless guy a hardwood paddle has its appeal.
On the water the other day my son Allan came up with a good idea. I'd been blithering about putting some form of decoration on my paddle. Not an easy thing to do seeing as how I lack decorating talent in spades. He simply said, "Ruler." I responded with a blank stare and a "Pardon?" I say that a lot and it means I didn't understand and would like the statement repeated slowly, loudly and clearly. His idea was to put a measuring device on the blade and handle. Many's the time we've used a paddle blade to estimate the length of a fish. Actually inscribing a ruler on a paddle is both a practical and great idea. So that's the plan.
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