James Adams: Local Salvage

(Note:  I wrote this piece as an article for The La Honda Voice, my local newspaper, in hopes of bringing James a few new clients.  With small changes, the article fits the theme of 365 Jobs.  James' life has been somewhat less tidy than my own, but I am focusing on the good.  As a contractor I've subbed work to him and as a homeowner I've hired him.  We've been friends for 30 years.)

James Adams, cabinetmaker, has been accumulating trees for a while.  Not entire trees, exactly, but the rough-sawn lumber milled by woodcutters around La Honda.  From Con Law, there was a walnut tree.  From Orril Fluharty, a pine.  From Neil Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch, a cypress.  Here and there, a bay laurel, a black acacia.  Trees that were sick or in the way or felled by a landslide.  Some of the wood, such as the black acacia, was of questionable value.  The lumber was salvage, and local, and would need to dry out for a few years.  “It was pure speculation,” James said.  “I had no idea.”

One day James, needing a new guide for his table saw, grabbed a rough scrap of  black acacia.  First he sanded it.  What he saw made him sand more, then apply a coat of finish.  “It just popped,” he said.  “It looked like koa, only better.”  (Koa is a highly valued hardwood from Hawaii and is a member of the acacia genus.)

What began as speculation became fine furniture, such as a cabinet James made for Russ Haines, a La Honda resident.  In this detail, the top is claro walnut while the support is black acacia:

“I’m a big fan of James’ work,” Russ says.

In a recent project, James built the kitchen cabinets for Maggie Foard, the well-known goat farmer and cookbook author.  Maggie already knew she wanted to use salvage.  Architect Lori Hsu drew the layout.  James chose details of how to integrate.  

 

Some of the wood, such as the panels of these cabinets, came from an ancient fence on the Driscoll Ranch:

Befitting their origin at a working cattle ranch, the fence boards included a few bullet holes (apparently not employed in the cabinet panels).

Under the big kitchen sink, James placed posts on which he carved bun feet and fleur-de-lis:

Working on a smaller scale, James makes sets of coasters from hard and softwoods obtained locally.  From left to right, on top are walnut and bay laurel (with a few insect holes to assure authenticity); on the bottom are black acacia and pine:

For another project, James is gathering driftwood at San Gregorio Beach.  Speaking of his finds, he can joke or wax poetic:  “Many pieces have spalting, a network of black lace-like patterns randomly suffusing the grain, acquired as the fallen wood lay on the forest floor before having been washed to the sea.  There’s one piece of redwood with stunning reds and blacks like shaded fire and smoke, and harder than Chinese algebra.  I never knew redwood could be that hard.”

Like many craftsmen, James’ language belies the popular image of the uneducated woodworker.  His father taught English at Palo Alto High and College of San Mateo.  From a childhood in Menlo Park, James came to the Haight Ashbury.  He says, “I bummed around, did my hippy thing.”  One day, he pursued a job listing for a cabinetmaker’s helper, which turned out not as expected:  The cabinetmaker wanted somebody to paint his house.  Needing the money, James took the housepainting job and eventually eased his way into various cabinet shops.  From “bang bang” shops turning out a cabinet every fifteen minutes to classical mortise and tenon work, from the Hard Rock Cafe to roulette wheels for the East Palo Alto mafia, from the Atomic Energy Commission to NASA (he built a cabinet to display a moon rock), “I had kind of a history working for somebody six to twelve months, catching up on the technology, then moving on.”

Along the way, James moved to the relative peace and quiet of La Honda, where he has lived for three and a half decades.  For many of those years, he was the town’s long-running multi-league soccer coach.  With age, he says, “I’ve hung up my cleats.” 

James is an astronomy freak who owns a collection of telescopes, including a home-assembled refractor.  On occasional nights he has set up the eight foot long telescope in the school parking lot and shared it with anybody in town who wanted to drop by.  A lifetime enjoyment of science fiction has encouraged his viewing of planets and deep space nebulae.  He is also something of a raconteur, telling tales of riding a Vincent Black Lightning motorcycle or participating in psychedelic "research."

James lost his house in the recent financial meltdown.  Feeling snookered by his mortgage company, James became a picketer outside Chase Bank, much to the institution’s displeasure.  Partly disabled by arthritis, he is engaged in salvage of the most local sort: his own life.  Currently he lives in a trailer and engages in part-time cabinetry.

In spite of financial hardship, James says, “I love the fun of woodworking.  Things fun don’t pay as well.” 

These days, he seeks creative challenges.  Inspired by legendary craftsman George Nakashima (and Nakashima's book The Soul of a Tree), James seeks a natural style that gives an idea of what the original tree was like.

Right now, among James’ projects are a commission to build a trestle table without hardware but with a leaf.  He’s also  designing a steampunk guitar. 

Creative challenges, local salvage.  As James wrote:  “Discoveries.  In found pieces of trees, beauty in flotsam littering a beach, in the jetsam of discarded pieces of wood.  If only there was some way to apply this principle to our day-to-day experiences…”  Which of course, there is.

(The photos of the Foard kitchen are used by permission of Lori Hsu, architect, who retains all rights.)

Paddy O'Sullivan

Saturday, September 29, 1979 to Sunday, July 22, 1991

On a Saturday afternoon in 1979, I was working outdoors with a pick and shovel, making steps out of railroad ties on the hillside below my house.  A jolly man staggered slowly up the driveway.  With long whitish hair and beard, he looked like Santa Claus.  Holding out one arm, he said, "Can I lend you a hand?"

I stared down at that arm.  He had no hand.

"Oops, sorry," the man said.  "I meant the other hand.  This one was eaten by a tiger."

Paddy at Apple Jack's, 1978

That was my introduction to Paddy O'Sullivan (Padraig or Padreic or Padreac — I've seen it spelled each of those ways).  On that particular day, he actually helped me move one railroad tie before he realized that I wasn't a soft touch for cadging a drink.  

Paddy was by nature a performer.  He claimed that his career began at the age of four as a character in the "Our Gang" movies, tipping his hat on film with the same gesture as he tipped at age sixty-four.  Whether or not he truly started as a Little Rascal, he became a bigger one.

He could show you a newspaper article from 1957 with the headline MAN HATCHES OSTRICH EGG.  That man was Paddy.



His mother had a theatrical career, or so he said.  He had a pair of pistols called the Naked Ladies.

In San Francisco Paddy had been living with the poet Bob Kaufman in North Beach, just across the street from City Lights Bookstore.  Kaufman was an improvisational jazz poet who would riff and recite on sidewalks, even sticking his head into people's cars.

Bob and Paddy both were in a downward spiral.  A young woman who had befriended Paddy finally got him out of there, drove him to La Honda, and set him loose here the way people abandon dogs and cats hoping somebody will adopt them. Those dogs and cats often wind up on my doorstep, so it's fitting that Paddy appeared there as well.  Don't blame the young lady, by the way.  She gave Paddy "a couple years' worth of re-invigoration," as she put it.  "He had really crawled into a shell when I met him.  He gave me a couple of years of entertainment, and that's what he was, basically, all his life, an entertainer."

For a while in La Honda, Paddy was a squatter in Ken Kesey's old cabin, which was vacant, floorless, and basically unlivable at the time. Then he rented a garage and promptly got kicked out. He ended up occupying a trailer below my house.  The trailer was owned by a man who was preparing for an invasion by space aliens.


Paddy wore a cape.  He published a thin chapbook of poetry: Weep Not My Children.  Though he'd lived for years at the world center of beatnik culture, he insisted he was not a Beat.  Similar to Bob Kaufman, Paddy would recite anywhere at any time.  He once barged into a private birthday party, stood on the table with the cake, and recited wretched poems until he was finally shoved out.


Paddy spent most of his days and nights at the bar in Apple Jack's where a photo of him, full color, framed, hung on the wall.  Claude and Kayla, the owners, kept a benevolent eye on him.

The last time I interacted with Paddy was in 1991.  A hot July night, sleeping with the windows open, around midnight I heard cursing from the street below my house.  At 5 a.m. I heard more cursing — and a voice crying "Would somebody please help me?"  Outside, at the base of those railroad tie stairs, I found Paddy lying tangled in blackberry vines: confused, lost, unable to stand.  He'd been there since midnight.  "Why did you fill my home with brambles?" he said.

"You're not in your trailer," I said.  "You're in my blackberry patch."  

I couldn't raise him to his feet by myself, but a patrol car pulled up.  The sheriff's deputy said, "Is it Paddy again?"

The deputy stood over Paddy and said, "You're getting too damn old for this shit."

Paddy said, "I only had a couple of beers.  I think I had a heart attack.  Flutters.  There's a respirator in my trailer.  Just take me home."

"Paddy," the deputy said, "last week you got lost in your own woodpile.  I'm calling an ambulance."

In retrospect, I'm amazed that Paddy helped me move that one railroad tie back in 1979.  I must be a pretty good contractor to have gotten that much work out of him.  He'd been hoping for a beer, but I had none to give.

Paddy could only be happy at the center of a three ring circus where he could read his poetry while wearing his cape and hat.  La Honda is a one ring circus, but it was the best he could find. 

Paddy, I'm a little late, but this beer's for you.

Guest Blogger: James Adams, cabinetmaker

Moon Rocks

The town of La Honda is populated by a remarkable collection of erudite cranks, of whom James Adams is a prime example.  James is a cabinetmaker by trade.   I've worked several jobs with him.  James can tell you tales about riding a Vincent Black Lightning motorcycle, about psychedelic research, about 30 years of coaching soccer (he was the model for the character of the Harley-riding pistol-packing soccer coach in Boone Barnaby).  He's also an astronomy freak with what is probably the biggest home-made telescope in La Honda.  Recently he wrote about a job which didn't involve me but that fits well with the themes of this blog: pride of craft, fatherhood, the random humor of life.  And moon rocks.  Here's how James tells it:

Some completely unremarkable junk, except that it came from the moon, has gone missing. Well, a very small weight of the stuff was presented by the U.S. Government to various screwball heads of state, Fascists and/or totalitarian and/or democratic leaders who were at the time considered "our friends."

Appropriately to how these deserving elder stewards of democracy valued these unique and timeless gifts from the most advanced and powerful society the world has ever seen, the rocks became paperweights, doorstops, and, frequently, trash.

One such treasure was rescued from a burning foreign government building, moments before being bulldozed. Had it wound up in the landfill, it would have disappeared like snow on the water. Unfortunately, it was rescued by someone who realized its intrinsic worth.

Better for him that it had sunk without a ripple. A U.S. Government Agency was on the case. End of story, there.

My connection: in 1970 I was working in Mountain View for a cabinetmaker, an older guy who had been a woodworker all his life, and who belonged to the WIC, the Woodworking Institute of California. This allowed him to do work for the U.S. Government and NASA Ames and such. 

We did jobs for the Atomic Energy Commission, non-magnetic fasteners throughout, mostly vertical-grain fir, classical joinery, like that. Don Sigman, the owner, assigned me to build a shallow box, covered inside and out with plastic laminate [think, Formica]. Maybe 42" wide, 24" front-to-back inside, and maybe 12" deep. With black wrought iron legs.

I was to deliver it to NASA Ames Research at Moffett Field, which was located about two miles from our shop.

The Marine guard wouldn't let me in because I had long hair. I asked him to give me a note to give my boss saying that he wouldn't let me in.

When he asked his superiors, of course, he had to pass me. Looks to kill.

Cut to 1974, taking my stepsons to the Exploratorium in San Francisco. There's the display case, with a plastic lid, with the moon rocks on display!

Oh, la.

J. Adams

Note from Joe C:  Has anybody been to the San Francisco Exploratorium lately?  Are the moon rocks (and the display cabinet) still there?  I wish I had a photo.

Edit:  March 25, 2012  If you want more, I've added a profile of James Adams to my Clear Heart blog.  Here's the link.

Oops

Tuesday, November 29, 1983

As the final task of a 10 hour day, I install a cheapo lock on a sliding glass door which requires drilling a ¼" hole.  I have to guess how far the glass is set into the metal frame because of course I don't want the drill bit to hit the embedded —

Aak!

Did you know that if a drill bit nicks the corner of a 3'x6' sheet of tempered glass, the entire pane shatters into tiny pieces and falls at your feet like a mound of crushed ice?

Mrs. Klein, the homeowner and a very nice lady, tells me that they had to replace another sliding glass window, and it cost $250.  She seems truly distressed that I'll have to pay.  She already feels guilty that I'm spending my time working for her instead of writing the Great American Novel, which she assumes I could do.  But of course the broken pane is entirely my fault and my responsibility.  

I'm angry.  With no one to blame.  My total earnings for 10 hours of work was to be $250.

Back home I have two ways to deal with anger.  First, I decide that this would be the perfect evening to refinish the kitchen floor on my knees with a belt-sander while the stereo is blasting loud rock and roll.  The music is essential as it becomes embedded in the oak floorboards along with the finish oil to create special thumping patterns of grain.

Secondly, I write a poem.  Don't underestimate poetry as a way to cope with anger — especially nonprofessional, nonacademic, sadly not-up-to-critical-standards poetry which of course is my specialty.  I compose poems the way most people sing karaoke: as an amateur, with gusto.  

Oops

In one second a calm pool of glass freezes
crackling under my feet
a day's pay
in one second the slip of a drill bit
Minnesota sunrise
shattered
shocked like a duck I stare
what became of my pretty pond?
My feathers ruffle
I squawk
I wish I could fly south
north
anywhere but here with Makita drill in hand
smoking pistol
decoys in a line bobbing
glass explodes
in my hair, my shoes, down my neck
hard shards
I wish I could shake like water off my back.
What evil hunter
do I blame
in this ambush?

The next morning as I report for work in my tool belt, Mrs. Klein greets me at her front door:  "I talked it over with my husband, and we agreed not to charge you for the broken window.  He says the house insurance will probably cover it."

"Probably," she said.  I love that.  Every homeowner's insurance policy has a deductible, and it is surely higher than $250.  Bless you, Mr. and Mrs. Klein.

What I get out of the whole incident are a long day's pay, a refinished kitchen floor and, for better or worse, a poem.  And one thing more: the kiss of human kindness.

Storms (Six) Following a Boy Who is Following the Water

Saturday, December 21, 1985

Following a Boy Who is Following the Water

Raindrops
trickle
over
pebbles
to a ditch
where we drop
a cork
which bobbles
among bubbles
as we follow
to a corrugated hole
that we call groovy pipe
under the road, splashing out
from wrinkles into a trench of adobe clay
where faster now water streams to a concrete
culvert under another road and pours out sinking
into weeds. 
Gone.

No!
Here it
reappears
downhill in wild
grass and we run
galumphing in galoshes
while the spinning cork drops
rapidly in a gully through tree roots
with beer cans gushing under the hulk
of a Willys (like my grandfather drove) as
here the ground levels out while our little cork
skirts a horse pasture and runs right through a chicken coop
until behind the midwife's house it plunges over the bank on a
     wa
     ter
     fall
into the torrent of La Honda Creek. 
How utterly satisfying.
What's next?

Storms (Five) A Good Day for Rainbows

Monday, December 2, 1985

Another winter of storms.  This is our fourth day without power.  Today there's hope: though wet and gusty, there are breaks of sunshine.  Trucks and crews are everywhere, men with chainsaws, men on cherry pickers, great spools of wire on trailers.  There are bulldozers and dump trucks and even a giant crane plucking fallen trees from a logjam in the creek.  Bless our road crews!  Bless our linesmen!  Everywhere it's teamwork, rough work, temporary patches that will have to do with no regard for how it looks.  This is a battlefield.  Open the highways!  Restore the power!  Aesthetics will come later, in more peaceful time.

At a house in Palo Alto I "repair" a broken circuit by flipping the circuit breaker.  Sometimes it's that easy.  I charge an hour's labor — have to, or I'll go broke doing this stuff — feel guilty but move on.  It's a day of small jobs, small checks. 

Every time the sun breaks through, lovely rainbows appear.

After the work day I pick up my three-year-old at Nursery Blue where there is a mammoth puddle.  Boys and girls in boots or barefoot are pulling boats.  The entire scene is framed by rainbow. 

Back home, lights are on.  The refrigerator is humming.  Suddenly, briefly, a hailstorm rattles the roof like God throwing gravel — and all the while, the sun keeps shining.  I see an icebow.

Pacific Storm

Electricity out and
a Pontiac overturned in a ditch
like after a war,
a pine tree uprooted with
branches skittering everywhere,
but coming down the mountain
through thrashing wipers
I see one
— there! — over Interstate 280
above crawling cars,
and later another
— there! — on El Camino
rising from Ernie's Liquors,
and then again
— there! — a full half circle
from the Shell station
to the Christmas tree farm.
Everywhere pots of gold
except home, the power now on
but the phone is out
as hail pelts the skylight
and through the trees, bolts
of sunlight: all in all
a good day for rainbows.

Storms (Four) For the Money

Saturday, December 3, 1983

The phone still works, and I'm getting emergency calls.  I drive the truck over the hill slowly.  Wind and rain are pounding the cab.  The road is a river of runoff, branches and rocks and entire bushes washed onto the asphalt, traffic lights out in Palo Alto and Menlo Park.  El Camino, the main drag, is eerily dark.  On the radio I hear that the Golden Gate Bridge is closed due to 70 mph squalls. 

I begin with a non-emergency job, one that I'd scheduled weeks ago, installing a new light fixture at a house in Palo Alto.  Their power is off, too, so the job is easy.  Hope it works.  I can't test it.

A bit behind schedule as I drive — oh so slowly — to the next job, I have to pull over for a moment, find a pen, and jot on the back of a credit card receipt while the truck shakes with gusts of air and water:

    I'm sorry I was late.
    I had to stop by the side of the road
    and write this poem.

In the middle of chaos it somehow pleases me to write a poem that means absolutely nothing.

At an apartment complex in Palo Alto, they still have power, though ornamental trees have cracked in half.  The gales are lessening.  I patch a fence, put a sliding door on its tracks, glue a doorknob that kept falling off, and then — insanely — change an outdoor security light bulb, climbing my 40 foot extension ladder hoping for no sudden burst of wind.  What am I thinking? 

Getting paid, that's what I'm thinking.  This is the opposite of altruism.

Surviving that chore, I tackle the final job: tracking down a mysterious and frustrating leak in a woman's bathroom which seems to come from the toilet — no, the sink — no, again, not that.  This is the opposite of poetry.  Finally, on hands and knees grubbing beneath a baseboard full of silverfish and soap scum and curly black hairs, I find it: the leak comes by subtle and hidden path from a shower door.  I almost gave up on it, but the more time I invested, the more I stood to not get paid if I failed.  Three hours to stop a tiny trickle of water.  In this storm, what irony.  Money motivates.