Don't Be A "Primitive Pete"...

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Hahaha - almost 40 years since high school shop and I still find myself saying "time for Primitive Pete" when there is no other solution available to a problem! Thanks for the throw-back!
 
Nearly 60 years since High School for me.. I probably took all of the shop classes available to me in booth JHS and HS… I loved doing things with my hands… Once into HS it was auto shop all 4yrs.. Even took auto shop as a JC course… Auto, wood and metal shop were all interesting to me.. I still have a chopping block I made in a wood shop class…
Butch
 
Skookum said:
It was clocks for me. Here's a nice piece of wood, make a weird shape, put a hole in it...chisel out the back...voila. Another clock!
Click to expand...
In 8th grade wood shop I made a pretty nice plaque with our family name on it, supposedly to be hung out side the house but it never saw the light of day. Thinking back on it I had scalloped the edges, which are basically a series of notches, so what I did was make an 18" ashtray with our family name on it. :rolleyes:
 
When the White House was renovated between 1949 & 1952, my dad saw an ad in the newspaper that offered enough wood "removed from the White House" to make a gavel or another item that I don't remember what it was. My dad ordered the material for a gavel. He put it away and never did anything with it. When I was in HS wood shop, he remembered that he had gotten the wood. When I opened the package there was one block of wood about 4x4x5 and another about 2x2x12 with a little brass plaque stating that the wood was removed from the White House in 1950.

I think I turned two dozen gavels on the lathe practicing before I used the White House wood.
 

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I was in Shop, drafting but don't recall Primitive Pet. The auto shop came after I left High School. My father was all about work, so sports was out, if you got hurt playing a stupid game you can't work. Was my father's thinking. I was lucky during high school, jumping in with two friends and working after school with a building contractor. Our job was to help those who were running behind on the job catch up. Lots we could not do as we were not licensed. But we all got to work with all the trades, learning a lot. As that after-school Job has saved me thousands of dollars on helping others or myself around the home. I'm still friends today with the two guys from High School. Today we laugh having not fallen into the trades. But we did not fall into the trades in our careers, and maybe because of the money we saved. In my mind's eye, I can still see Pat (our Boss) with a cigar small frame, and his smile. Truly a man you did not want to get on the wrong side of, but someone I have always tried to emulate. With his straightforward way of getting things done and friendly. But with all that if he did not like you. You could die in front of him, and he would not lift a hand. But in today's world, I don't think you would see high school kids working alongside electricians, Carpenters, Brick Layers, etc. sadly.
 
It may have been in 1962 when I was a sophomore and I took up wood shop. I made a pair of saw horses for my Dad. Do you know I still have them. They are quite ricody but I still use them occasionally. One of them I cut right through the top with a skiIl saw and I had to nail a board on the bottom side so I could still use it. I should take them apart and use all the pieces as patterns and make a couple of new ones but I won’t. I could hand them down to one of my son in laws and then to one of their sons but they’d end up outside in the weather for the next few years rotting away.
 
I seem to remember the school principal saying something like " return to shop class and make me a new paddle. return with it by Friday" I don't think foam or wiffle boards were around. That old retired Navy guy complemented me on the design and production of said tool of destruction, followed by "3 licks" to the posterior of the designer.

Times were different back then!
 
For the last 13 yrs of my working life, I taught HS Woodshop. Never knew of Primitive Pete. The Vermont HS I worked for was enlightened enough to give a Fine Arts credit for Woodshop and all students needed 2 Fine Arts to graduate. So, I had every student that didn't want to do Art, Band or Dance. Kids that would go to engineering schools alongside of those that couldn't read a tape measure. Became a furniture making class with some focus on design and historical styles, just so I could say ,with a straight face, that there was some element of Art involved. Was fun and classes were full. I retired 10 years back , the program lasted one more year and folded.
Most everytime I tell someone that I taught Woodshop, I hear about what they made in class some 30-50 yrs back. I loved watching kids walk down the hallway with completed projects showing stuff off to their Buds.
We did make a lot of kindling though which I shamelessly traded off to the cafeteria ladies for a free cookie here and there.
 
Never heard of Primitive Pete. My big "make" in shop was candlstick holders. I made a pair of them. I don't know where those things are now. I'll have to ask my wife. They weren't great, but they were mine! And really didn't look too bad.
 
I was fair in woodworking shop in HS. After HS I attended Westinghouse tool N die school, then apprenticeship. After that I could never work with wood and turn out anything nice. A toolmaker makes tolerances and clearances waaay too tight when working with wood.
After retiring from the Army I returned to tool N die and retired from that profession too.
 
Never heard of Primitive Pete. :oops:
Because of my classes, there was no time for shop.

Can't say that we ever made an ashtray because nobody in our families smoked. So my best friend and I, as kids, mowed lawns to make enough money for parts to make soap box racers, go karts and scrap lumber tree houses in the woods.

Later on we fitted lawn mower engines to bicycles and cruised the trails in the nearby woods, until we were old enough to drive. Then aside from making a couple of large stereo speaker cabinets, we worked on maintaining/modifying our beater cars.

:giggle: I still have the speakers and cabinets 58 years later and they still sound good.

Now mostly work on maintaining the house and TT.

But still no ashtrays.. :giggle:

Thanks for the memories inspired by ButchW's and other's posts.

Safe travels and all the best.
 
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