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You know... as I spend time in the workshop cutting wood and trying to figure out how things can be done better I often think of 2 people that got me interested in such things. My dad and Jim Gumbol. I am not sure my dad knows how much he influenced me. I did not until the last few years. Every time I hook a wire onto a nut I can hear him telling me to thread it so that the screw pulls the wire in instead of pushing it out. There are so many things like that. And the things that he did not tell me, I figured out myself because he instilled that curiosity that has made me always wonder why things work. It might also be the reason that I have to count the lugnuts on every car and truck I see. Thanks for that, Dad. The other person was Jim Gumbel, our shop teacher at Keota High School. I had "JG" as a teacher for woodworking and metals. When I was a senior, he had 2 classes going on at the same time that I had independent shop where we could make whatever we wanted using any of the tools. He told me that if I would teach his drafting class for him, he would give me an "A". So I did. I did not mention that I had skipped over drafting class and went right into woods. He just assumed I had taken it and I just assumed I could do it. I did and it was kind of fun. A lot of times when I am working on wood, usually around the table saw, I think that it would be kind of nice to tell him that I still have a lot of interest in the things that he taught me. Then today Richard Ellis came through where I work and mentioned that he had passed away. He was one of the 3 teachers at KHS that I really respected. JG, Kuhlman, and naturally Hultman. I liked some of the other teachers, but did not respect them that much. There were some that I did not like or respect. Donny "one eye" Phillips did not deserve respect and he got none from anybody. I did not like Kuhlman, but I respected him because he was able to teach me Algebra and Geometry when I thought I was too stupid to learn it. That was based on my previous experience trying to learn it with "Shifty" Shaffer, who was probably one of the worst teachers ever. But JG and Hultman I really liked and respected. If you can get a kid to do both of those things, you can get them to do anything.
So RIP, JG. I wish that I had gotten to tell ya'....
1 comment:
I just saw that in the alumni banquet letter.
"JG on the CB."
"JG with the drill press." *makes motion of making a drill press go up and down*
I remember me and Brian Wright doing the drill press thing during my senior year, but I have no idea why.
BTW, Richard Ellis is a *huge* real estate guy up here. I keep wanting to take a picture of a big Richard Ellis sign on a building and send it to you.
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