"Old George, the boatbuilder, had gone to his reward, and the gang gathered in sadness at the close of working hours to build him a proper coffin, shaped with the loving craftsmanship that the subject deserved.
They fetched down boards from overhead that George had been saving for 40 years past — teak, mahogany, and black locust, fit for a hell-of-a-lot-better customer than he had been getting all that time.
And each of the boys brought his own jug, to ease the pain and sustain him through the dark hours of dedicated labor.
There was no overall plan, although the foreman assigned jobs in a general sort of way. So there were a couple of dovetailed corners and one half-lapped, and the fourth mitered — and each man did his best, in the dim lantern light, as he had been taught in his youth.
Finally, the lanterns faded, come the dawn; and the foreman, waking with a start, said, 'You've done a real good job, boys.'
Then he raised the lid, and looked in, and said, 'But who the heqq put in that centerboard trunk?'"
From: How to Build a Wooden Boat, by the late David C. "Bud" McIntosh.
_________________ "There is no path to peace, peace is the path." Mohandas K. Ghandi
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