Things Men Have Made by D.H. Lawrence Things men have made with wakened hands, and put soft life into are awake through years with transferred touch, and go on glowing for long years. And for this reason, some old things are lovely warm still with the life of forgotten men who made them.

The wood rod was deep amber with burgundy wraps. A three piece rod, its ferrules mottled with a metallic rime that flaked away beneath my fingernail. The deep forest-green backing was like a heavy cotton thread.

Picture (C) Robin Rhyne

I can’t remember now if it was bamboo or just wood. I was 14 and playing around in the abandoned garage/shed at the back of the house we rented. On a high, deep shelf was the rod. I took it down and balanced it in my hands. I fished, but knew nothing of fly fishing, yet this rod had a feel to it.

Thirty years later I wonder what became of it. When I close my eyes and think of this rod, I dare not trust my memories, for I find myself thinking there was something to it, a spark in which someone “put soft life into” it. It is this that draws me to thoughts of owning a bamboo rod—not the so-called “status” of it, but rather the “transferred touch” put into it by the maker.

Sitting near me as I write is a fly tying chest, leaning more toward honey than amber. Brass handles and hinges. In the old house I used to own there was a shed, I think an old chicken coop. A large shelf, about seven feet in depth, spanned the shed’s width. I tore down the shed to make a woodshop on its foundation. I salvaged the shelf, which turned out to be four inch wide Douglas fir tongue-and-groove flooring. It was old growth fir—its growth rings packed tightly together.

I saw a fancy toolbox in a catalog. I was tempted to buy it for my fly tying paraphernalia, but it was nearly $200. When my shop was erected I needed a project to christen it. I thought of the salvaged fir and the tool chest.

I took my time, planing the 7/8″ thick tongue-and-groove to 1/2″ stock—something more delicate for the design I was planning (I had no plans and made much of it up on-the-fly). I ripped it down to 2 5/8″ widths and spent hours gingerly crosscutting to length this species so prone to splintering. In time the box took shape.

I often wonder where it will be in 100 years. Who will have it? Will it be “warm still with the life of [this] forgotten” maker?

Whatever man makes and makes it live
lives because of the life put into it.

*first strophe only