Well, Mark, you have motivated me to begin my story.
Things began around 60 years ago. My father began a retail/wholesale lumber company, East of Portland, Oregon. Oftentimes I would be placed in the front seat of his '49 Studebaker pickup (without seatbelts or car seats) and head for one or several outlineing sawmills. One such mill was the Koch Sawmill in the community of Sandy, located in foothills of Mt. Hood. Often times we would leave the main highway and head down a switchback road that was all gravel. The road had no trees to speak of hiding it from the mill below. Layed out before us would be hundreds of piles of lumber of various lengths but usually of only one height, about 4 feet. The mill had about 5 or 6 straddle carriers or "Jitneys" that would haul the lumber from the green chain site to the storage areas.
Coming down off of the hill and seeing the "Jitneys" scurring around like some oversized ants was a great site. One day, one of the drivers had pulled up to the main office about the time we arrived. I looked in awe at the machine. The dirver said to me, "Ya want a ride, kiddo?" Obviously I yelled, "Yes!" Some might say that the res was history.
While the years passed on, each visit to the Koch mill brought on more and exciting adventures, tours of the mill, office visits with my father the Mr. Koch, etc. The one thing that stays the longest is the rides. It got to point that the drivers of the "jitneys" were having races to office parking lot to see who would get to take me for a ride. What a thrill for all of those 7 or 8 years.
Forward some years of happenings. I changed from visiting the mills to a 25 acre farm that my folks purchased, but we never moved to or built a home. I did get to play cowboy from 12 to 24. When I sold out I was running up to 150 head of cattle in a feedlot approach and loved every minute of it.
I had gone to college and decided to herd kids rather than cows. I sold all of the walking stalk and moved to the central part of the Willamette Valley to begin a 30 year teaching carreer. All this time I had not forgotten the roots of my being and continued to work with wood and in the woods.
I began sawing firewood on some friends tree farms and eventually ran into my wife, Alice. On our first date we went for walk on her tree farm and in the woods high on a hill amongst a stand of 130' tall Douglas Fir, I looked up in the trees and asked her to marry me. She looked up in the trees and said, "Yes!"
For the first two years of out marriage we would often live out at a friends tree farm, about 20 miles away, in a two cabin tent and cut firewood. This lasted to another two years after the land was preped for replanting and the tent fun. I continued producing some firewood from the home place, but not the 100 cords a year, like before.
About fifteen years ago we had gone on a tree tour across the Valley and lo and behold there was a fella there that was running a sawmill. I watched him for about 3 hours. On the way home I said to Alice, my wife, "Lets sell the house in Monmouth and buy a mill?" To my good fortune she said "Yes!" Unbeknowns to me at the time, it was her way of getting out of feeling obligated to help in the firewood end of the farm business.
Now I can say the rest is history. I have owned three different Mobile Dimension mill, I have a 52" head rig that I do not operate any more, and an Ocar 36 for making mantle pieces and slabbing shorter logs as well as Maple Burl.
I have been sawing for about 15 years now and it is still a great experience to open a log and see what mother nature has to offer the eye.
There mmay be more later.
The more later
As of late, I have discovered that I have a very deep want to see what is beyond the bark of a tree. The figure, character, grain pattern, coloring, etc.. Then comes the use of the wood and to see it in place, in the form of furniture, flooring, a whole house. bed of a truck or lowboy trailer, and in some cases carvings and marquary. It is a great feeling to see what others have done with something you have helped produce up to a certain point, while another takes what you have produced to another level.
