I decided to try my hand at building twig furniture using the dogwood hoop. Something dad had never tried. Maybe for a reason, I wondered? I would put as much care into shaping the dogwood hoop, as Dad had done. I would learn the will of the dogwood. What if instead of discarded pieces of scrap twine and stolen rusty nails from the outhouse, I predrilled holes in the dogwood twigs, filled them with modern carpenter's glue and countersunk a wood screw into the hole? The furniture that resulted from combining this modern technology with primitive building materials was astonishing to say the least!
Early on, before I had a shop, I worked out of our living room. I remembered back to the days of my childhood; the curly shavings from dad's whittling and shaping net hoops littered the floor. Hanging from the walls and door facings, were nets in varying stages of completion. Skeins of cotton twine hung from all the straight chair backs. Hand carved net needles and string clippings of random lengths, were strewn, every where. I admired mom, for all the patience and understanding she displayed, through the clutter of it all. Not to have worried, just like mom, my wife earned my admiration; living with a shop in the house.
I will never forget my first day in Red River bottom, gathering dogwood for my new business venture. I was meticulous in choosing perfect shoots, bundling them and carrying them out of the swamp to my truck. I felt dad's presence; it had been twelve years since his passing. But, he was there! I would not come to realize until 1996, that dad's presence, in words, would always be with me. "Dad, just wait till you see, what I'm going to do with your dogwood hoops!" Realizing I was exhausted and talking to myself, I sat down and leaned back against a cottonwood tree. I began dreaming ... dreaming of a giant of a man with his small son by his side, making a pair of big and little foot prints all over Red River bottom; Long, long ago. Meandering between reality and fantasy, I dreamed of an easier way to gather dogwood.
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I dreamed of a machine that could cross sand bars and swift waters: A bulldozer that climbs river banks and tears through vines and brambles, a contraption that could — with my help — metamorphous;
