Hobbies and Productive Passtimes.

Tom's Journal.
http://tomschuckmanjournal.blogspot.com/
tschuckman@aol.com

I remember about 30 years ago working in the hot, dangerous, sweat shop of AMC [American Motors Corp.- in Kenosha, WI] and my seniority date that ALL employees know and remember: 11-7-72. I can say that at least it kept my family fed, clothed and paid the mortgage.. and it's darn nice to have a pension and health care benefits... yet. But I know that I had a lot of buddies/ fellow workers there who had their own private, after work hobbies and even businesses on the side, and me too. I always liked working with wood and building things, that I learned from my father when I was a young boy. He had an old Sears table saw, and in those days they didn't even come with a motor! I guess he and grandpa took an old 1/4 horse motor from a refrigerator and stuck it on the table saw pulley and it lasted for some 20 years! When it finally died, I bought a new one horse motor to replace it as my Dad loaned it to me. I acquired many new tools thru the years and my own wood shop in the basement of my own home, but I really started to find my niche when I bought my first ROUTER [1 HORSE POWER]. A friend showed me how to use it, and after a while I started carving scriptures, pictures of animals, etc., into wood and started selling them. Then I expanded into picnic tables, furniture, shelves, huge chairs/ thrones and it gave me great satisfaction thru the years!

I also got into many other skills that my Dad insisted I learn and do to help our family on the farm, like veggie gardening, fixing things, welding, but I enjoyed reading many books on 'how-to-do- things', etc. I also payed guitar in a few small rock bands in high school. Latter on, I went to an old pioneer type camp out get together.. like the old 'Mountain Men' survival groups where I learned from an old geezer how to throw a tomahawk. The saying, "Practise makes Perfect" is not always true. If a person continues to bake a cake or meat loaf with a dent in the cake pan-- every cake will come out with a dent in it...duh. So we have to learn the correct way of doing something from the beginning-- or buy a new pan. Another example is, if you learn to make chords/ music on a guitar the wrong way-- it's very hard to change to re-learn the right/correct way latter. The Army had this joke- motto, that there is the 'Right way, the Wrong way, and the Army way'... LOL.
So, throwing an ax, tomahawk or any edge weapon is really a 'mathematical series of the proper number of revolutions of the 'hawk' turning end over end so that it lands on the target with the 'business end' sticking in the target. Once you learn the correct way-- THEN your practise will make it 'perfect', just like anything else, golf, bowling, archery, typing your post, etc.
I hope I have shared something good with my readers, but some of you probably knew this anyway, I'm sure. Learning the Truth of the bible is much the same way, in that if we learn from a TRUTHFUL, God loving person and/or fundamental church that really loves TRUTH and God-- his works and preaching will bare good fruit that will benefit the student/ member. Jesus said, that, "by their fruits you will know them-- Gal. 5:22." For instance, the fruits of the Spirit [the Holy Spirit-- of Him dwelling in the heart of a believer] are: 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control,... ' True Christian are SUPPOSED to have these fruits to varying degrees according to our practiced maturity and growth! But in the world of darkness under Satan's works and machinations we see the 'works of the flesh, ' Galatians 5:20, 'immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissent ions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, etc.' I know that I have been guilty of most of the bad things in my life, but have gained many of the fruits of the Spirit as I matured now as a Christian... but it has not been easy and I have to constantly work on things and resist temptations. Like an AA program, I have to "work my own personal program" that [for me] consists of a daily intake of the Word of God-- the Bible, meet with other mature Christians on a regular weekly basis, pray, etc. Just like a Soldier has to keep in shape and train to keep that razor edge in case he has to jump up and fight in a moment's notice. Our foes are mighty and mean-- so we have to be a little bit MEANER!

Well, I have to force my self to go down stairs in the basement to work on some things that need fixing. and then I want to go to the store latter to buy some oranges to ward off any more flu bugs and sickness. I am trying to feed my wife all the good, fresh fruits and veggies, vitamins and minerals before she goes in for open heart surgery so that she has a fighting chance to survive and heal properly.

Tom