Friday Night and had a couple

[16gauge]

Well...this little site is addictive...I turn 55 on Sunday and don't want cake and ice cream. Just want another insight or discussion on my chainsaw hobby. I don't cut much wood anymore but love the sound and smell of the best power equipment on the earth. CHAINSWAWS!!

My great uncle Oscar was a professional saw filer before and during WW2. The sawyers worked all day and returned the saws to the filer's shack at the end of the day. He worked all night filing those crosscut saws. In the Idaho panhandle, nighttime = dark. I guess he had a Coleman lantern but that was so he could find his file and can of Copenhagen (and little bottle).
My aging father tells me that Uncle Oscar could file a saw better than anyone else it town even after he was legally blind. This man was a professional...he did not ever miss a days (nights) work in the woods until he got too old and fat eating the breakfast from the camp cooks. :blob5:

 

[Diesel JD]

Well happy birthday...if you love chainsaws this is the place to be man! Interesting story about yoru uncle....sounds like you are talking about crosscut handsaws...are you or something else?

 

[16gauge]

These were single and double crosscuts...felling saws. They used axes mostly for limbing...and yes they were hand held push-pull saws.

 

[pbtree]

Happy dirthday dude - now go buy yourself a nice shiny new BIG motha chainsaw, and have it hopped up for more POWER, and enjoy the next year!

 

[asb151]

Yes, this site is great! I spend way too much time on it.

Happy B-day! At only 55 you still have many good years left behind a saw. I agree with pbtree…..sounds like a good excuse for a new saw.

 

[pitkas]

You only turn 55 once.

 

[Al Smith]

Ah yes,55,I remember it well.Happy birthday.

 

[16gauge]

Thanks to all for the good wishes. I looked at an new MS 361 this morning and was sorely tempted.

 

[keith c raymond]

You will never see 55 again,be impulsive,and make yourself happyIf you think about it long enough,you can justify anything!

 

[Gypo Logger]

At Fifty-Five

Three score and ten, the psalmist saith,
And half my course is well-nigh run;
I've had my flout at dusty death,
I've had my whack of feast and fun.
I've mocked at those who prate and preach;
I've laughed with any man alive;
But now with sobered heart I reach
The Great Divide of fifty-five.

And looking back I must confess
I've little cause to feel elate.
I've played the mummer more or less;
I fumbled fortune, flouted fate.
I've vastly dreamed and little done;
I've idly watched my brothers strive:
Oh, I have loitered in the sun
By primrose paths to fifty-five!

And those who matched me in the race,
Well, some are out and trampled down;
The others jog with sober pace;
Yet one wins delicate renown.
O midnight feast and famished dawn!
O glad, hard life, with hope alive!
O golden youth, forever gone,
How sweet you seem at fifty-five!

Each of our lives is just a book
As absolute as Holy Writ;
We humbly read, and may not look
Ahead, nor change one word of it.
And here are joys and here are pains;
And here we fail and here we thrive;
O wondrous volume! what remains
When we reach chapter fifty-five?

The very best, I dare to hope,
Ere Fate writes Finis to the tome;
A wiser head, a wider scope,
And for the gipsy heart, a home;
A songful home, with loved ones near,
With joy, with sunshine all alive:
Watch me grow younger every year --
Old Age! thy name is fifty-five!




--- Robert Service

 

[16gauge]

Gypo Logger, Thank you for that fine post. You have obviously thought about the milestone I have reached. Two more years and you are there! It is an appropriate time for reflection. After all, how many have achieved the dreams we had at 25, 35, 45? I have no complaints at this point. My last ten years have been pretty productive and I no longer worry about pleasing the boss...instead I work for the customers...the bosses seem to come and go...now they want me to be the boss. Now maybe if I were 45 I would jump at the offer....

 

[Gypo Logger]

Hi 12 gauge, glad you liked the poem it was written in 1912.
I was lucky enough to have a heart attack exactly a year ago, no biggy though. At least I'm not dead!
I say lucky because it made me more mature and stuff like that I think.
At our age we wonder what we shall do with the rest of our lives. I'm not ready to give in yet and hope I have a few miles left.
I think once we have settled into the realization and acceptance that being an Old Codger is ok, then it's all easy from there on in.
John

 

[Gypo Logger]

Speaking of Oscar and his filing abilities, does anyone know where I could find a Maple Leaf or Simonds crosscut saw here in Canada?
Thanks in advance,
John

 

[1Alpha1]

I just turned 51 last month. It finally dawned on me.....I'm now a real adult.....

16gauge.....happiest of birthdays to you........... :bday:

 

[Brit101]

Best wishes 16gauge, may it be a happy one!