December 12, 2014 Advent with SusieJ

Table saw

Jorj's father, George Sr., died October 3rd this year, after weeks of palliative care, which followed a summer of mystery pains after a spring of radiation treatments. Every morning, after getting Jake off to school, Jorj drove to his father to take care of him. When Jorj arrived that morning, his stepmother told him she thought his father had passed that night. While they waited for the funeral home to send a hearse, neighbors stopped by to comfort and swap stories. Jorj's father wanted him to have the contents of the workshop he'd kept after retiring as a carpenter (or "wood butcher" as George Sr. called himself). The table saw was the first and most important tool to come to us from the workshop.

Compare pictures of Jorj, his father and grandfather at the same age, and you see that there was no mix-up in the hospital for those boys, not least because George Senior was born at home. One reason my Jorj has kept his goatee for so long is that without it, he looks too much like his father and grandfather, and I didn't marry them. Jorj's grandfather, George W. (he declared he was George W. well before the president), was a general contractor who built his own house; his father worked heavy construction across the American South from the Atlantic coast to Texas, before deciding that carpentry was less taxing on the body. Both could create beautiful things with their hands. Jorj studied electrical engineering; the first of his engineering projects that Jorj showed me was perfectly laid out and soldered.

George Sr. had a stubbon streak like a sitcom character. At eight years of age, a piece of flying metal left him legally blind; one eye could see only black and white. To get around this limitation, he memorized the eye chart so no one would know how bad his vision was. He successfully volunteered for the US Army, but couldn't hit the target when during shooting practice. He was sent to the Army eye doctor, who asked him to read the chart. The Army has its own eye chart which he hadn't memorized, and George Sr. was honorably discharged. Such poor eyesight didn't keep him from working as a milkman, and later as a carpenter for the state.

My Jorj is equally tenacious and bullheaded with any and all roadblocks that he runs into. Confronted with a problem, he will not give up. He will not take a break. He will not sleep on it. He will power through until he has beaten it into submission. Superstorm Sandy dropped half a maple tree onto our car, shattering the windshield. Not only are we still driving the car, but Jorj has spent weekend after weekend tracking down the near-invisible leak that soaks the front seats every rainstorm.

Last November at Jake's first Doctor Who convention, Jorj decided he wanted to build a Dalek (a robot villain) for the next convention. He found plans on line and started building a prototype for a full-size Dalek. "Bob" the Dalek was nearing completion when George Sr. died. Whereas I spent the summer drinking lots of wonderful gin cocktails, Jorj doubled down after his father's death, finishing Bob, the motor, two remote controllers, writing the control software, recording sound effects, and, particularly, building a traveling case for Bob. The case fits in our car, and is modeled after the special cases George Sr. built for his hand tools.

[Jakob meets his Pop-pop, George Sr., for the first time. Copyright Jorj Bauer, all rights reserved.]Jakob meets his Pop-pop, George Sr., for the first time.

The recipe: Hot cocoa

Jorj's favorite winter drink, especially with a little vanilla, heavy cream, and amaretto.

The craft: Clove & orange pomanders

The idea is super-simple, but the designs are inspiring.