Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Uncle Henry...Delivers

You may recall a while back that I told you about my life growing up and living next to Uncle Henry and Aunt Pat. After he and Aunt Pat passed away, their property was sold to a developer who tore down the studio and gardens and subdivided the property into 5 parcels that have houses on them today.  Just prior to the sale, my sister L (who was closest of all of us to Uncle Henry) scavenged some of the artwork that Uncle Henry liked to make and display on the outbuildings on the property.  She has some of these still, but a bunch of items ended up in my mother's garage.  Well, when my mother passed five years ago, I cleaned out the garage and took some of these items to my house, where they have been languishing for years. 

So in early December, I stumbled (literally) over a sign that was from Uncle Henry's property.  He had a long, winding front walk that led up to the front door of the house, which they never used (or answered), so delivery people often got confused.  So Uncle Henry made a sign out of scrap wood that he hand carved, painted and attached to a post at the front door to send them to the back of the house.  This sign is at least 40 - 50 years old (probably older) and I can still see it (in my mind) along the walk. 

So I thought this would be a cool Christmas gift to give to L.  I knew she would immediately recognise it although she probably thought it was lost  forever.  Having been outside in the weather for decades, it was in rough shape.  So I cleaned and lightly sanded it first.  Then I put some metal straps on the back to hold it together and keep it from splitting any more.  Then I got some black, oil based stain and painted the bulk of the sign.  I had taken it up to the local Ace Hardware and they made the recommendation on the paint.  I next got some white and red acrylic paint from the local AC Moore and painted the lettering and arrow.  This took several coats and some tweaking with the black stain to get the lettering and arrow edges as clean as I could.  It probably took me longer to paint this then it did for Uncle Henry to carve it.  Finally, I added a hanger wire on the back so that L could hang it on the wall in her house.  This wouldn't last outside again.




The rear of the sign.  The wooden brackets are original.  The metal brackets and hanger wire were added by me.  Note the wood burned deer in the background.  The Pudge has taken to wood burning since his last Boy Scout Summer Camp.  The sketch and wood burning were done by hand.

Here's the finished sign.  I hung it on my wall just for picture taking.

A close -up of the carving work.  It's kind of hard to see in the picture.

Another close-up.

And even closer still.
I gave this to L last week and she was very touched by it.  It will have a new home on a wall in her den.

8 comments:

Heff said...

Any chance she'll hang it in the bedroom ?


Just Curious.

Buzz Kill said...

Heff
Hey, that's my sister your talking about!

Yeah, there's a pretty good chance.

Heff said...

LMAO !!! You KNOW I was kidding, dude.

Jenny said...

What a great story. I think your Uncle Henry would be very happy to know he's still around.

fishy said...

What a thoughtful gift! I bet your sister is thrilled with you ... but being siblings you know the approval will be brief, right?

Congrats to Pudge on his outdoorsy art and good of you to encourage/support the interests.


Next week WRITE a haiku, don't just lurk around commenting. BTW .... get ride of the word verification.

Buzz Kill said...

Boxer
Yeah, Uncle Henry will be around for a few more years - until my generation is done.

Fishy
My sister likes everything I do for her. I'll get a lot of mileage out of this gift. Bwahaha

The Pudge definitely has some artistic talents. Last night at our scout meeting, his patrol had to make a new flag and he did most of the work. And he did a nice job. I may make a short post on it.

And I'll tell you what I told LaDiva - I had to turn verification on my blog because I picked up a bot on a post I did over 2 years ago (at Haiku post at that). They really want me to buy tramadol/retin-a/viagra/cialis - 237 comments and counting. I'm going to leave the verification on for a few weeks in the hope that it goes away.

Karl said...

Good afternoon Buzz Kill,


A nice gesture on your part. Funny how you can come up with an idea and then once into it realize what a deep commitment you have just made. I'm sure L really appreciates you stuck it through.

Buzz Kill said...

Karl
The work wasn't as much as I made it out to be. I gripe about everything.

Sorry it took so long to reply, but I've had major computer and schedule problems.