I am so excited to tell you about my friend Leendert Joubert.
He is 80+ years and still working on his woodturning lathe. I find it
remarkable. You will notice that I did not write: 80+ years “old.” Why? Read my
blogpost below and form your own opinion of this friend of mine.
This story is about my friend Leendert and his woodturning lathe; if you
happen not to know what a woodturning lathe is, I suggest that you stick with
me and you will see it; you don’t have to google it, Leendert will show you. And
a side issue of him helping his wife in the kitchen.
This side issue is about him working in the kitchen with his wife, Lilia.
She has problems with her eyes to the extent that it is difficult to read. This
of course, hinders her baking coffee cookies and other nice stuff. It is no
problem for this enterprising couple: there is nothing wrong with his eyes! So,
he started reading the recipes to her. Then he gets naughty at times and would
deliberately exaggerate the quantities and add or subtract ingredients just to
get a reaction from her. And every time his does that, he gets the desired
reaction. And you can guess yourself what that is.
Him working on his lathe, impressed me so much that I shot a couple of videos on my cell phone, edited it and eventually published it on my youtube channel: click here to watch it.
The title is in Afrikaans, our mother tongue and I called it LEN SE
MAAKSELS – loosely translated it means: LEN’S CREATIONS or LEN’S CREATURES or
something similar. To be quite frank with you, it is actually not me that chose
the title; it derives from his granddaughter referring to Grandpa’s “creatures.”
He explains how it came about making all
those candlesticks. His one granddaughter saw something similar that he turned
and she decided she wants some for her wedding. She told her grandpa that she
is so massively impressed with his creatures and asked him to make some as
decoration on the tables at her wedding.
He immediately accepted her invitation; and for him it was also a
challenge. His son brought some pallets home for his dad to use for whatever
pleased him. Leendert took the small squarish blocks of wood separating the top
and bottom planks and he started using those squarish blocks of wood destined
to be thrown away. He glued it together and turned it in candle holders. He
explains that the one he was shaking, he started from the “wrong end” of the
block – he only realised it right at the end of the “creation.” And he very
wisely, asked the question: “Does it really matter?”
To my mind this golden oldie was inspired by his grand daughter to do
something very special for her wedding day. And he took old scrap pieces of
wood destined for the fire or the trash heap, and he turned it in something of
value. I am sure that the wedding guests will enjoy it. In turn [pardon the
pun] it turned me on to take some video clips of this process. I had to go back
to his home to take several video clips to get the sequence right.
Back at my home I spliced it together. I was still not satisfied with
the result. I asked him what music shall I use as background music? He took
some time and came back with his list. And being the man that he is, he told me
that it was difficult to give me a shortlist; there are just too many good
music scores that he loves and that he could have chosen. The music might be
subject to copyright issues, but my take on that is that I have used just a
slice of it and it should be considered fair use and by the way it is for
private use.
While I was writing this, I watched an internet archive video about Christopher
Columbus’s son, and his library. To my big surprise Hernando built his library
on a dung heap just outside the city of Seville. I suggest that there is
something inside both Hernando and Leendert: taking something odd and reshaping
in something of value. You can watch the internet archive’s video by clicking
on this link; if you are in somewhat of a hurry, you can move your cursor to
about 32:52 minutes to listen to the narrator telling this fascinating story of
Hernando’s library. Click here to watch the video about shipwrecked books.
I find it truly inspirational. Thank you Leendert, Lilia and Hernando
and internet archive.
What do you think? Please write me an e-mail at neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za
