Author: Lou Carreras

Marine carving as a trade was an outgrowth of my family background and my professional interests in boat and shipbuilding arts. I have an abiding interest in all things maritime, and my blog is as much about Maritime life as it is about marine carving. Like most sailors,​ I love sea stories
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The Jets!

Daily writing prompt
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
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If someone asks, “What’s the most important thing to carry with you?” some of us will slap our pockets for our key, wallet, pocket knife, handkerchief, or some tiny talisman. But on reflection, you’ll realize those are just the physical items we carry. It’s no quibble to point out that the non-physical counts for more than the physical. Growing up in New York City, I was always told to act as though I knew where I was, where I was going, and that I was where I belonged. Although how you carried yourself was important, attitude took you through…even if you did run at some point if the situation deteriorated into a brawl.

I rarely needed such chutzpah later in life, but the lesson of self-confidence stays with you. Committees in corporate or government bureaucracies may not handle switchblades and zip guns like the old-time gangs of my youth, but they can be every bit as thuggish and brutal.

There are very few circumstances where allowing thugs to smell blood is a good thing. And if you think that the only thugs around are the ones on dark streets, your education is lacking.

The folks in the board meeting may not be jiving, snapping their fingers, and singing the gang song from West Side Story, but trust me; they are just as much a bunch of thugs beneath the neat, professional clothing. What’s the most important thing you carry with you every day? Your attitude and self-confidence.

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Absurd

Daily writing prompt
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
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This blog does tend to wander about. I know that some errant fools have decided to follow it because they saw the Louis N Carreras, Woodcarver tag and figured I’d reveal the secrets of carving; only to find that I was on a rant about overpriced bottled water the next day. I do tend to drift. But you see, drifting is fun, and writing about carving every day would eventually get boring…today I removed seven cuts, snick-snick, from the transom of the Ruth P Tarbox. Aside from the occasional bits of onomatopoeia, writing that would be boring. And if it bored me, it would bore the readers.


I prefer to be in cahoots with the inner me who has always loved telling tales and is finally getting to inflict his sense of an absurd world on others. To me, the absurd is not about the meaningless toil of the world but the twists and turns people take, creating meaning where none existed before. The essence of my blog is telling little stories that follow their internal logic, sometimes true. 

One of my posts was about a friend who married a mermaid. I had a friend, Mahan, who was the drunkest bosuns mate in the entire Navy. His life found new meaning when he met and married Stella. When asked to describe Stella, he always mentioned that she was a mermaid. To sailors, mermaids can represent a host of things: femininity, beauty, transformance, and magic.

Many people took the description as an inside joke. Still, those of us who had known Mahan as a terrible, if amusing, drunk took his description as literal truth because we saw the effect of his relationship with Stella. Stella was a mermaid. And an essence of their relationship was how that relationship helped transform Mahan.
So, if my blog is about anything in particular, it’s about finding meaning in an absurd world and trying to have fun doing it.

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All-Night Diner

Daily writing prompt
Describe your life in an alternate universe.
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I went to the airport last night. Well, it has to be the first time in about eighteen years. I prefer to drive if it’s on the East Coast and I haven’t been elsewhere in a long time. A drive of fifteen hours is about my limit. So I can get some oh dark thirty driving in on these excursions.
You know, two AM and the mind starts wandering, listening to some live shock jock on the high end of the radio dial. The rest area caffeine is alive and well in your veins, and the creepy crawlie tendrils of memory come out to romp because you’re alone on a dark highway, and your mind begins to play with reality. 

It wouldn’t be necessary for me to describe it if you’ve been there, but I understand that a segment of the population flies all in one straight line and never looks left or to the right to check the flight pattern. Lucky you.


So one night, I’m on my way back from Philly, I’ve just crossed into Connecticut, and as I pass some little drive-past town, I remember stopping there one night in the sixties. There was a dynamite all-night diner there. It was the sort of place that served breakfast at midnight for late-night excursionists and truckers. I was on my way back to Boston and had been let off my last ride there with advice that I could find my next if I asked around. I got the ninety-nine-cent breakfast special with an endless cup of coffee. Someone asked if I could play the guitar or if it was a machine gun, so I pulled the guitar out and gave them a song. This was followed by about five more with breakfast on the house and about five dollars in tips for the music. An older guy with a horn in a case offered me a ride to the Boston area, and soon we were on the way.

About an hour into the drive, the horn player offered me advice. ” I know you don’t want to, but start thinking about what traveling from gig to gig will be like when your hair gets grey like mine. You’ve never made it to the top tiers, commanded big money, or been recorded. You live in a wreck of a studio apartment with your cat, and the wife moved out because you can’t keep a job.” He went on in tone for a while before lapsing into silence. Eventually, he let me off at a streetcar stop, and I watched the sunrise, waiting for a ride into town. Being about twenty, I paid little attention to what he said.

About 1969, I began to separate myself from counterculture lifestyles. Several friends had already departed life from alcohol and drug abuse, and I knew several performers who fit all too well into the type cast the horn player suggested. A violent incident almost cost me my life, and I began reconsidering my path. But what if?

And that was the alternate reality my mind began to spin out as I drove into Massachusetts, heading home. I had continued to make bad choices, my hair was grey as it is, but the nicotine stains still graced my fingers. I had moved on from folk music to calling myself a singer/songwriter. A self-produced CD of my material occupied boxes in the car’s trunk; for sale at whatever venue I was playing at. A long-term relationship had eluded me; it’s hard when you never know your schedule. But the new songs were solid, and I could finally see the future clear before me.
About then, I saw the other car pull alongside, and I looked toward that driver and saw the resemblance. I almost spun off the road then but continued to the little rest area ahead. I pulled over and almost forced myself to take a break and sleep for a few hours.


When I first woke up, I had a moment of uncertainty. Which one of us was I? No nicotine stains, no guitar in the back, and clear memories of the wife and home I was returning to. I wondered if that other Lou was doing the same else when. He might also be shuddering. His alter ego had surrendered his art for a bit of economic stability, given up unusual friends for a sort of middle-class stasis. He, too, might check to see if the old beat-up guitar was in the back. We had parted ways somewhere on the road years before and continued down non-parallel tracks. But there was a sort of kinship between us still. The beat-up guitar still had a place of honor in the house, scribbles of songs still populated the desk occasionally, and whenever I was asked to bring the guitar, I felt that old feeling as I did in my coffeehouse days. I’d pluck out the music with the same alacrity I had that night in the all-night diner.

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Foodie

Daily writing prompt
What’s the most money you’ve ever spent on a meal? Was it worth it?
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I have friends who are genuine foodies. I enjoy a meal with them because their appreciation of good food is infectious. I don’t think they realize that my appreciation of fine cuisine was rendered banal by Navy chow, the turgid stuff we served at various folkie flophouses in the sixties, or my mediocre forages into culinary butchery.
It wasn’t always so. Once upon a time, I had delicate stemware, visited some fine bistros, and had a lovely young girlfriend who delighted in multiple courses of fine food matched with appropriate wines. Surprisingly the cat, Clancy J Bümps – AKA the Grey Menace – got into the scraps. It got so he liked his leftovers in separate mounds on the plate. She flattered his taste in fine cuisine by asking in a pseudo-French accent what Monseiur would prefer tonight. This appealed to the little fart because his ego was large enough for four other cats.


Regrettably, the Grey Menace seemed to suffer the most when the crash came. “What! A cheesesteak sub from the Chateau Greasy Spoon? I can not bear this!” When my girlfriend and I briefly made up, he rejoiced; fine cuisine had triumphed. When we finally parted, I could almost see the debate “Fine cuisine or my best friend?” Friendship won, perhaps only because he did not get along with her cat.
After grad school, things seemed to get better. Girlfriends who stuck around realized the Menace was not just a kitty who resided with me but a central part of the living arrangement. For a relationship to prosper, he needed to be courted. Gifts of medium rare, thinly sliced filet mignon were considered appropriate. This would win over his affections, followed by a delicate chin rub, a brief petting session, and coos of pleasure.

However, he was a cat of simple but refined sensibilities. Thinking of courting an adorable young woman, I fixed upon taking her to a ruinously expensive restaurant in Boston. The entire entertainment budget for three months is gone in an hour, but her complaints about the service were grating, this was too cold, or that too hot. At last, she broached the subject which most disturbed her, “Whatever possessed you to bring me here?”Realizing that the evening was ruined, I asked for the leftovers to be boxed to take home. Her look of dismissal bothered me not one bit. On the street, I apologized that a pressing post-prandial appointment would force me to leave her to find her own way home. I walked to my car as she fumed on the sidewalk. And no, I did not feel like a cad.
On getting home, I opened the box of leftovers for Clancy. He picked them over and returned to a bowl of kibble, giving me a disdainful look. Obviously, my cat was a member of  Les Amis d’Escoffier, the feline division, and I was hopeless. Since then, I merely trust my foodie friend’s sense of outstanding cuisine. 
Eventually, I married a wonderful woman who did not care about my culinary idiocy and of whom Clancy approved. Peace at home is a beautiful thing.

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control

Daily writing prompt
Scour the news for an entirely uninteresting story. Consider how it connects to your life. Write about that.
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I generally get to sleep within a few minutes of lying down at night. But only a year ago, sleep was a significant issue.

After my hip replacement surgery, I was put on pain medications that made me anxious, kept me from sleeping, and had me pacing the floors on a walker. The dilemma was that, at least for the short term, I had to be on meds and was restricted to an uncomfortable day bed until I could again climb stairs. After three days, I felt half-dead from sleep deprivation. My best sleep came at about five in the morning if I took a light cover and pillow to my little side porch. Sitting, waiting for the sun to rise, and listening to the birds, I would drift off to sleep for an hour or two.
As the nights went by, my nighttime anxieties mounted. Not having had significant issues with sleep previously, I began to worry that this was a new normal, that a new unbreachable pattern was setting in. On day four post-op, I threw the pain medications away. I preferred the pain from my operation to the problems created by the meds. Fortunately, I found that over-the-counter medications worked better for me.

After dumping the synthetic opioid, things began to improve. I was still confined to the first floor but found that if I did get up at night, my cat and dog would visit. Dr. Xenia prescribed purr therapy, and Dr. Max prescribed dog treats as a sovereign remedy for what ailed me. Their monkey shines distracted me from the hip issues and the anxieties from my limited mobility.
This morning, an article on anxieties and sleep disorders was at the bottom of the paper’s website. A flood of unpleasant memories flowed back. What I remember most about those nights was my inability to do anything about the problem. It seems that I have not processed or resolved all my anxieties, and like many of us, I have issues with not being in control of my life.

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Coffee

Well, the dust has settled…When Dunkins goes out to drink coffee… it goes to Aroma Joe’s.

I knew it!

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Respite

Daily writing prompt
List 30 things that make you happy.
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As a society, we are getting too attached to itemized lists, stacks of bulleted items, and compilations with the word bucket in the title. Today I’ve used vermillion, Alizarin crimson, and cadmium yellow in my painting. I’m done if I can squeeze in some unbleached titanium oxide and ochre. I’m not joking.

We all know people who feel compelled to list or be listed. 


Happiness can’t be reduced to watching the sunset in the Rockies with your Sweety while eating Chunky Monkey ice cream, followed by a Taylor Swift concert. Those things might evoke pleasure, but happiness? I’d maintain that you’d need to be disposed toward happiness for those things to affect you positively. The wrong frame of mind, and you have exquisite torture, not exquisite happiness. Paying too much attention to lists with little checkboxes is an excellent way to mistake a masquerade for actual life.


Take a break. Take a respite from categories, lists, and checkboxes. Now… hold a deep breath, let it out slowly, and forget you can count. Just be in the moment.

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Hub Rat*

The House of Pain was staffed with a wide variety of folks. The Human Resources officer who hired me confided that his favorite description of it was the ” Foreign Legion” of workplaces. We had people from all races, ethnicities, and education levels. We had a mini-United Nations in the building and could have credibly fielded students and instructors for every grade from seventh through high school and university.
Within a week of taking over as supervisor of “30 door” I had a note passed to me by way of a Teamsters’ pony express. It was from an anthropologist on the night shift wondering which grad school I had attended. Over the next several years, we exchanged notes regularly on matters that our Teamster colleagues thought idiotic. But they were of interest to an anthropologist – like which dysfunctional society we had read about was most like UPS.
One of the package sorters had a master’s degree in chemistry. After burning out in corporate America, he needed a way to gather a retirement and maintain health care coverage for his family; much as I did. A Shop Steward was a stock market day trader. UPS covered his benefits for his children.
We also had many people who came to us after a “complicated work history” elsewhere— I fell into that category in some ways.
My immediate manager was a guy named Jim. Jim had a master’s degree in special education. None of us knew why he was at the House of Pain. Just like the Foreign Legion legend, people might tell you why they were there, but it was not allowable to ask. Someone leaked the information about his education one night at a party. Jim, had a habit of talking to you while talking to his right shoulder. Some wag cruelly labeled it as him talking to his parrot. The sad thing about it was that they weren’t listening to what the man was saying. And, he had lots to say of great value for surviving in the House of Pain.
One day I was complaining loudly about a new loader who was exceptionally slow and clumsy. Jim did me the courtesy of taking me aside before chewing me out. And then he told me this: ” Louie, this company can’t always hire the very best. It’s up to you to give them the tools they need to become successful.” Over the next several years, Jim struggled to give me the tools I needed to be successful at making my disparate group onto a team of successful individuals.
Success is an interesting item. Start with minor success in one part of your life, and you can learn to build upon it—success upon success.

*Hub Rat -is a UPS’ers term for someone who works at a hub ( a sizeable central package processing center). For many, it’s a badge of honor, and we are never ashamed of describing ourselves as Hub Rats – not everyone can do the job.

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Fun At The Interview

In a long life in the beautiful world of work, I’ve run into my share of awful job interviews. There was the interview where it became apparent that I was only getting interviewed because, for some reason, the interviewer was looking for dirt on my current employer. I was invited to spill it all. I declined. Then there was the interview in which they viciously attacked me as soon as I said hello—half an hour of innuendo. Reasons unknown.
In situations like those, you don’t want their job. If you are so desperate that you’ll take the job if offered, you’ll regret it immediately. In the nasty old ’60’s you’d be better off going and selling blood or plasma, and yes, that was a thing.

I know resumes are prefiltered, sorted, and optimized these days long before you face an interview. I’m also aware that most are virtual these days, at least first interviews. But the interview is a terrible place to discover that your homework on their company has missed a few glaringly bald spots. As 1950’s hipsters used to say, “You need to cut to the chase, ace!” Do your research.
You get a good idea of what will go down in three minutes. The pleasantries are over; you’ve discovered he has a pet scorpion named Sid. You’ve learned from the spots on his tie that his favorite color is mustard, and the actual favorite candidate is Bob from their motor pool. But Bob will need an assistant to do all the work, at much less pay. Regrettably. You begin to connect the dots and wonder if this job may not be a good fit for your skills in Systems Dynamics. Typically, you’d look at your watch and tell them their five-minute speed interview is over; have a nice day.

An alternative is to take a deep breath and have some fun. You know that in this quality organization, the interviewer found a list of questions they should ask on the internet: Where do you want to be in five years? Why should we hire you? Tell me about a time you failed and what is your dream job. So here are some suggestions:


1) Where do you want to be in five years? – Well, when my probation is done, I plan on leaving this sorry excuse for a state.
2.) Why should we hire you? – Someone needs to pick Bob up off the barroom floor and bring him home after he does a five-boiler maker Xertz chugalugs at the Tiki Bar and Lounge.
3.)Tell me about a time you failed – Just the other day. I saw the ad for this job and failed to skip over it.
4.)What is your dream job? Tollbooth toll collector. You meet interesting people on their way to exciting destinations, but there is no pressure to commit to a relationship.
Extra Credit – pull out your Magic Eight Ball and ask loudly should I accept this job? Tell them that the answer was Very Doubtful. Get up, walk away, and have a nice day.

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Gifting

Daily writing prompt
Write about a random act of kindness you’ve done for someone.
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I have much more in “I owe” than in “I’ve given.”
Over the years of a desperately poor youth on the road, I frequently survived on small gifts and “investments for the future.”One frequent giver admonished me not to think about paying it back to him but to pay it forward to others.

One of the ways I pay forward is with gifts of carvings, spoons, spatulas, cutting boards, and bowls. I’ve also given away some quarterboard carvings, canes, and other items in stock. Being that these items are functional and practical, they have reasonably immediate effects on the recipients. They also last, so the gift keeps giving through long-term use. While I always give to family and friends, I also gift random people I meet at craft and boat shows. I sometimes get asked why I would give some of these things away. My reply is that I do it because I can. Craftspeople should be generous with their gifts, Most of us have not been gifted with wealth, but we have been given the talent to produce useful and lovely items. We should share with others.

At its most optimal expression, a gift is an expression of goodwill from one person to another. When I see a person at a show who appreciates something I’ve created, I am sometimes moved to gift them with it. The look of pleasure on their face is my reward, and I know that the present will not be another gimcrack they’ll sweep away during a kitchen reorganization.