In Memorium

No silly puns or corny jokes today. In 2002, we lost our son, Tom. As anyone can imagine, it was a devastating event in our lives. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him. He was 29 and had so much to live for, especially his beautiful little girl, who is an even more beautiful 14 year old now. This happened in Kansas, where he was living. We flew there and brought him home. He was cremated and buried at our, local cemetery. I kept a small container of his ashes, planning to make some sort of urn for them. It just seemed like it was never the right time to do it. The small container sat in the closet, semi forgotten. The other day, I decided that I needed to do something. I have a bunch of really nice, exotic hardwood that I got when I helped to clean out my uncles garage. They had to put him in a nursing home and I got most of his tools and materials. I cut some 1/8 veneer from a particularly pretty piece of South American Macacauba. I laminated the veneer to some 1/2 inch birch plywood. I then cut the four sides and the top and mitered the corners. With some careful clamping, all the corners came together very nicely. I wanted real crisp, sharp corners and I managed to get them. After a good sanding down to 320 grit, I sent it to the local trophy shop for laser engraving. Tom was an avid skateboarder, so I made this little skateboard and mounted it on top. The board is maple burl and the wheels are walnut. I used brazing rod for the axles. I put a couple of strips of grip tape on the face of the board. I know the real boards have the tape covering the entire top, but I wanted the figured burl wood to show, so I took some artistic license. In all, it turned out very nice and we're both very pleased with it.