TreesOfYesterday

I am a counselor and am a licensed marriage and family therapist. I am also an ordained minister and have been the pastor of a church in Yadkin County, North Carolina. Previously, I have been a staff member at Wake Forest University and I have been a group therapist in alcoholic rehabilitation program in Butner, North Carolina. Currently, I am on the adjunct staff of the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro. North Carolina, I have a counseling practice, am an executive coach and maintain a schedule as a supply preacher and interim pastor plus turning wood.

It was while I was a therapist working with alcoholics that I learned to turn wood. Woodworking was one of the elements of the occupational therapy program and I went to OT with my group and quickly learned that I loved to turn wood. My first lathe was a Delta 46-111 which is probably considered an antique by now. I put on my front porch in Durham and when winter came my wife graciously consented to me putting it in a spare bedroom. Can you imagine the dust and mess? For five or six years my shop was in a room on the main floor of the house and only later did we have a house with a basement. Unfortunately, for an extended period of time as pastor of a church I gave up my hobby and worked all of the time. After retiring from the church I have once again begun to turn wood. I have since acquired a NOVA DVR lathe and a Jet mini lathe.

I turn woods native to North Carolina and I never cut a live tree for turning. The wood that I turn comes primarily from fallen and dead trees being cleared from someone’s yard, trees cut for a development or by the power company, etc. I turn pens, bowls, boxes, platters, ornaments, hummingbird houses, etc. and I am willing to turn anything from poison ivy to black walnut. The wood may bear the effects of beetles, decay, fungus and worms and the items will be as natural as possible and sometimes include the bark, cracks and voids. I try to label each wood that I turn but sometimes it is just F.O. G. (found on the ground) wood.

I currently live in Yadkinville, North Carolina with my wife of over 50 years who continues to tolerate my dust and wood chips being tracked in the house from my shop in the basement. In addition to woodturning, I also enjoy gardening, fishing, boating and being a grandfather.