On July 4th, as the sun began to descend, and various iterations of rockets red glare and bombs bursting in air ascended into the evening sky, a friend of mine said, “I’ll be thankful if I wake up tomorrow morning with the same number of fingers I woke up with this morning.”

I enjoy woodworking. The process of turning a pile of wood into something of need or want is quite satisfying. A bookshelf, a cabin, a chair…things that start as a mere image in your head and take shape to sometimes resemble that image. Sometimes…other times we find ourselves in a state of pensive contemplation, pondering the overestimation of our carpentry skills in front of a backyard fire as the wood from a failed project crackles in agreement. So it goes.

As Samuel Becket wrote in Waiting for Godot, “Ever tried? Ever Failed? No Matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

The table saw that I turn loose on the majority of the projects I attempt is older than me. It harkens from a time of yore when safety was the responsibility of the operator not the manufacturer. A time before blade guards, anti-kickback pawls…a time when eye-protection was called “squinting”. Leering protection? Deer plugs? What? You’ll have to speak up.

As I said, I enjoy woodworking, but I really enjoy playing the guitar, and the guitar is an instrument that is most efficiently and effectively played with a full set of functioning fingers. Sure, it can be played with less. I once saw a fellow with no arms deftly play an acoustic guitar with his feet, but I prefer to avoid such if at all possible. My toes are appalling.

You may ask, “If your precious fingers are so important to you why don’t you purchase a table saw that was manufactured in the 21st century, one that has more safety features than you can shake a severed finger at?” That is a fair and reasonable question, and I believe I have a fair and quasi-reasonable response.

Firstly, the relic I rely on has character and a sorted past. Two endearing factors for most anything. It resided for the majority of its life at my grandparent’s farm, where it was called into service often by my Uncle Tim (a real carpenter), once by my Grandpa Ardell (a farmer/comedian), and occasionally by myself (a wee lad with nary a bit of adult supervision). During that time, the table saw that now resides in my garage, bit two of the three folks previously mentioned.

Grandpa Ardell, whom I should mention, only had full use of one arm from birth, twisted the doorknob to leave the shop where the table saw resided, with that one good arm, with half as much thumb as he had used to twist the doorknob when he entered. As for me, I was sent scurrying out that same door, up to the farmhouse to have Grandma Rose clear away what seemed like a lot of blood, to a 10-year-old, and fully assess the state of one of my favorite index fingers. As I stood over the kitchen sink, legs wobbling, I fielded questions from my favorite attending physician about why I was using the table saw, and nodding in hardy agreement that, “I should be more careful.”

Merely a flesh wound. A warning shot across the bow.

Lastly, as part of my quasi-reasonable reason for not upgrading to a less malicious table saw, I would like to call upon the Peltzman Effect. As stated in the Journal of Political Economy in 1975, “The Peltzman Effect was first introduced by economist Sam Peltzman in his study titled “The Effects of Automobile Safety Regulation”, where he theorized that people are more likely to engage in risky behavior when security measures have been mandated.” I rest my case.

Perhaps that table saw is a wise oracle, a misunderstood guru, not so gently assisting me to find moments of undivided attention in divided times, times where the middle-finger seems to be waggling about with sneering and jeering impunity. Most often a virtual middle-finger, or its equivalent, being safely waggled from afar by someone who would most likely never waggle one in a fellow human’s actual face. Have you heard of the Peltzman Effect?

Each and every time I flip the switch on that table saw, just before I push a piece of wood into those hungry unguarded whirling teeth, I think of my Grandpa’s thumb, the shot across my bow, my Grandma’s ever present plea to “be more careful”, and my guitar, and I am instantaneously fully focused on the task at hand and the fingers attached to those hands.

Thus far, knock on wood, self-congratulatory high-fives have managed to prevail.