[Woodcarver] The passing of a humble carver

[Linehan718 at aol.com]

Dear Carvers, 
 
          My friend and  carving mentor, Charlie Post passed away on Fri.   
Thank you all for  your prayers and sympathy.  His suffering has ended.  I 
think I am  more relieved than sad.  Tomorrow I will be sharpening up one of his  
handmade knives, collecting an unfinished carving and taking it with me to the 
 wake on Tues. There will be a whole bunch of carvers there, we will send him 
off  properly. 
 
I wish to share a little something with you. Its a wood  story. Friday night, 
I figured I would go out and have a drink in Charlie's  memory but of course 
at our age, most don't care to go out, or don't drink due  to medications, or 
can't stay up too late.  I myself, lost the taste for  liquor years ago and 
drink very rarely but being Charlie and I are full blooded  Irishmen and it 
being traditional to lament a passing with aged Irish whiskey, I  simply had  to 
spill a drop o' the devils water.  I talked  my sister into going with me. Not 
knowing a good bar to go to, I suggested a  little place that I hadn't been to 
in 20 years, just a bar in a restaurant,  nothing spectacular.  It popped 
into my mind because it was near Charlie's  house and I kind of remembered him 
saying that he "had done a little work" for  the bar many years ago.  We go in, 
sit at the bar, empty except for some  old man nursing a rob Roy down at the 
end. We are looking around the place and  it is almost all wood.  Beautiful 
wainscoting, handmade wooden ceiling  fans, a massive wooden bar, real wood plank 
floors, handmade doors, real  quality stuff.  Now you have to understand that 
Charlie and I only became  friends in the last 5 years or so, since I began 
carving.  To me, he  was a decent carver, great instructor, talented stained 
glass  guy.  Prolific??? Passionate???absolutely, but would his carvings win at 
a  world class carving show, to be honest, probably not. Bartender  is 
delighted to have company and starts chatting with us.  He asks why of  all bars in 
the world, we would wind up in this bar.  So I tell him, a  woodcarving friend 
of mine passed away today and I think he may have done a  little work here.  
He asked me his name, I told him.  He then tells me  I am sitting in the wrong 
seat.  I said "excuse me?", not  understanding.  He says just move one seat to 
the right, so I did.  He  then pours me a brandy snifter with a good quantity 
of Jameson Irish whiskey and  proceeds to tell me to look down.  I did and 
what I saw was  incredible.  There was an old golden plaque affixed to the front 
of  the bar and it read.  "this Bar was handcrafted by Charlie  Post".  Tell 
me now, is there anywhere better than that to be having a  drink to his 
memory. He went on to tell me that Charlie did every bit of  woodwork in the bar.  I 
was astonished and in awe. I wanted to go  wake Charlie up and yell at him 
for not letting me know that he had built the  whole damn place. I would never 
have guessed that Charlie was so impressive, a  great carver and one hell of a 
carpenter.  I was so sorry that I couldn't  tell him how impressed I was and 
yell at him for being so humble.  He  passed his tools along to me and I will 
cherish them forever. 
 
 It is to my great disappointment that I didn't meet Charlie when he  was in 
his prime, when he was creating masterpieces and I am honored that he  felt me 
worthy of his time and effort.  Anyway, here's to a fantastic  carver passing 
amongst and away from us all, just as cleanly, silently and  gently as one 
thin woodchip, leaves the block and cascades down to the  pile. May he rest in 
peace.  Carve on Charlie
 
Maura Carving  in NYC
_www.carvinginnyc.com_ (http://www.carvinginnyc.com/) 






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