Day one was the learning curve. Who were the players, what could they do, and most of all, were they ready!
The night before the shootout it was clear, winning this even was clearly at the top of Franks lists of things to accomplish in life
Frank was drafted to participate in the shootout with Jim, the mechanic for MD. Jim clearly knows the machine inside and out and was confident in his knowledge of the mill. Frank, a well versed sawyer with the MD had visions of 10 & 12" wide boards flying off the mill and finishing the 4 small logs provided in the shoot out in about 45 minutes or less, even though they were given two hours to cut them.
The morning of the event Frank was designated "Tailman", later changed to Tail Gunner! The horn blows and Franks age and experience, well, he waited for a board. Jim eye balled that log several times to line up the blade to ensure not one bit of wane was on their first board. In a flash, well maybe a twinkle, the first big board came off. It was perfectly handled by Tail Gunner and he made sure it was stacked perfectly straight in the soon to be pile of perfect lumber.
That first board measured a whopping 1x.................3
The next one was better! With a 1x...........4 in his hands it too hits the stack of perfectly lined up lumber. 1x3 after 1x4 after 1x3, the board tally was working its way up. You could see Tail Gunner holding his breath just waiting for that first 1x..............6 to land in his hands.
Tail Gunner never broke a sweat yet he was laying perfect lumber down, board after board. As time went on the crowd got larger and larger as they all came to watch the team crank out perfect lumber. Looking around it was clear the MD was the only game in town: the others had finished
They pressed on with pride and confidence. By the time the last log rolled around a few things came very clear. The waste pile was minimal! The lumber was perfect! No one was sweating, other than maybe a few sweating bullets from under Franks Tin lid, thus the name Tail Gunner!
The truth of the matter is, we all knew the MD could outperform the rest of the mills however having Frank, a master Sawyer, tailing was not going to make that happen. Yes they cranked out perfect lumber effortlessly but you could see the competitive nature of Frank Pender boiling up to kick but, only to be handed yet another 1x4.
In an effort to make Frank feel better, I reminded him he should be happy as he owns an Oscar 36, which finished before the MD
After returning to the booth, Carl graciously established the legends new name, Tail Gunner!
I know there will never be a way to get the real events captured in text but trust in the fact that we all had a great time and truly only picked on Frank out of Love!
Frank, as you stated in the truck during one of those intersection mary-go-rounds, your the turtle in the race with the hare, and we all know who won that race!
