Check this dude out...

[centerfire_223]

I thought of HuntNCarve when I seen this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlSvsvHBYDw&spfreload=10;bcsi-ac-51628d54de0a7217=26A86B1800000003NbEY8UlSryy7Di57HLm67GWCWPaOAgAAAwAAAC9NJgAIBwAAAAAAANjwDAA=

[HuntnCarve]

Thanks Ronnie!  I enjoyed watching that and a few of his other videos. 

There was an old Russian man that lived at the top of the hill when I was a boy.  His beard touched his knees, and us kids were scared of him.  He did not speak English, but would shout out to us kids as we ran by his house.  One of the older kids said that he always had a knife in his hand!  That made us run all the faster.  Years passed by, and we all grew older.  The old man would be still be sitting out side on the nice days, but now covered with a blanket.  He was not so threatening now the years having taken their toll.
One day after mowing the neighbors lawn the next house up, the old mans wife flagged me down and asked me in broken English if I could cut the little strip of lawn between the houses.  She said she would pay me.  Of course I refused the money.  Heck, it was only a few passes with the mower.. After I finished, I was heading down the lane when she called out to me from their front porch.  I walked up to the house while she wheeled the old man outside.  He was now wheel chair bound.  He had a blanket covering his legs, and in his lap I saw a small pile of wood chips?  His wife said he loved carving and would always be working on something with a small assortment of pen knives he kept in a cigar box.  She said he always yelled to the children to come and get a carved toy or trinket he made as they passed by.  But that the kids would always run away? I told her what us kids thought of the knife wielding old Russian.  We were terrified when he would holler at us.    She translated what I said to her husband and they both laughed.  I swallowed a lump of guilt. 
I spent the afternoon there sitting with the old man while his wife translated most of his words.  He had been a miner early in his life.  He came to this country and got a job in one of the local mines until he broke his back in a mining accident.  He recovered somewhat and went back to work.  But years of hard labor finally took it's toll catching up to him in his golden years.  His whittling became his joy.  He would sit outside and carve till it became to dark to see.  I was intrigued watching his hands as he whittled away on a small piece of wood.  Transforming it into a decorative spoon. As he talked to me he would occasionally break into a cough?  I was young, but I knew enough old miners to know that it was not a good sign.  As it got closer to evening his wife said it was time for him to be taken inside.  I said goodbye and told them I would be back when the grass needed cutting in a few weeks.  The old man grasped my hand in his and smiled at me.  Right then and there I knew I wanted to spend more time talking with him. 
A week later my mother told me that she heard the old man had died.  He had lung cancer.  I told her about my afternoon I spent talking with him and his wife.  Mom said that the old woman went to live with her son in another state.  In passing, I mentioned his love of whittling.  Mom told me she heard that the old man had carved elaborate canes and walking sticks that he sent to several Presidents of the United States.  She said from FDR through Truman, to LBJ.  I was shocked!  To this day, I regret losing the opportunity to have spent more time with the old man.  Its a lesson for all of us in one way or another.  Opportunities need to be recognized and acted upon.  For they are fleeting...
Thanks for the video and memories.

HuntnCarve
Dave

[Okanagan]

Powerful.  Thanks for posting that story.

[coyote101]

Powerful.  Thanks for posting that story.

Powerful indeed. Thank you vey much.

Pat

[FinsnFur]

Wow, very interesting. Nice find