Thoughts of a Floor Sander

Strange random thoughts pass through your head when you are sanding floors. Even with the iPod blasting away, and me singing loud into an empty, echo-filled home there is time aplenty for reflection. Today I was thinking about when I was a kid living in Richmond, B.C., and all the other kids I knew there. My two best friends were named Trevor Schaffer and Cory Blondheim (with an honourable mention to his older brother Kurt.) The Blondheims had a sister named Tracy who was friends with my sister.

Also, for some reason I kept thinking about the name Jodl, he was an early Nazi organizer/leader, and later Governor General of occupied Poland, who was tried at Nuremburg (I’m currently reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.) This English kid who lived in Richmond kept popping in my head when the name Jodl would float by, although I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his name. The English kid was nothing but a minor character in my circle of friends, but there he was at every corner today. Then I thought of Terry Metko, the only kid in my grade at J.T. Errington Elementary who was chubbier than I (he was also a pal), and an even more obese kid who lived across the street from my grandparents’ house in Tswaassen whose name was Jody (maybe that’s where the whole Jodl thing came from?)

The other name that kept popping up was Albrecht Dürer, a renaissance artist who was famous for his fabulously detailed woodcuts and engravings. I studied Dürer in Art History and was blown away by what amazing images he could create with a block of wood and some chisels. I was always very interested in print-making, more so than painting, because prints involve creating negative images from etchings on metal, wood, old spuds or whatever, which can later be changed infinitely depending on what ink/paint you use and what paper lies underneath. Also print-making is closely related to the printing press, and I have always loved books (especially illustrated ones).

Anyways, it’s totally weird what runs through one’s head when it is pretty much on auto-pilot. At the group home I would always be thinking one step ahead trying to resolve the current crisis, or blocking out the intolerable attitudes/work ethic of certain staff and the mental agony suffered by the clients, attempting all the while to maintain my sanity. With refinishing I mostly know what my day will be like, the only challenge, usually, is the physical fatigue. Since that doesn’t put to much stress on the thinking parts of my brain, they will wonder off to places I would never consciously send them.