Traditional Ways (August 16)

Robbie and Uncle Harry were fishing a few hundred yards off the shoreline of Évariste Leduc’s farmstead. As they watched the patriarch’s elderly spouse working in the sizeable garden, Harry broke the silence: “Here’s a thought, Robbie. What if, in fact, we were living our lives almost the same as the folks in that house?…

“Take your grandmother and Évariste’s wife. Granny’s not as old as her, of course …but they might be more similar than you think…

“I’d say your granny spends her time on things that aren’t so different from that old girl in her vegetable plot.”

After a little verbal fencing, they concluded that while Granny was especially expert in church embroidery, the other was equally skilled in cultivating crops destined for the kitchen table, with Granny’s perfectly stitched “output … as plenteous as the produce from Grand-mère Leduc’s Garden.” In the end Robbie suggested, “So, they both make things. Is that it?” And Harry responded, “Yes, and people respect them for it.”

Anyone with the capacity to make things deserves respect, no matter what they turn out. Not just Granny or Grand-mère Leduc, but also Bébert with his lifelike decoys, Dudley Cadieux with his pie-shaped boat, or any number of other figures who inhabit the pages of Providence Point… or who range freely in the world at large.

Even Geoffrey Chaucer–the first poet in modern English–was proud to call himself a ‘maker’: a creator of stories worth remembering and passing on. From architecture… to aeronautics… to literature, various forms of ‘making’ have carved out an honorable tradition. Most likely you have your own ideal of an exemplary product created by an admirable maker. What is it, and why does it deserve appreciation? Let others know in the Comment section below.

Providence Point, pp 59-61

(Illustration generated by AI)