Gotta Hand It To Ya...

Just finished reading 'Kitchen Confidential' by Anthony Bourdain - If you haven't' read it, read it, period; he's a gas - Thanks, Anthony...

One of the pieces in there is him examining his hands, conjuring memories from the various scars, etc. It's great, one of those now-why-didn't-I-think-of-that things. Whereas you can tell age best by throats and hands, you can tell more about what somebody does or did from a closer examination of their hands, no doubt.

Mine read like a history book as well. Both pinkies are crooked, that's from hockey - Both broken at least once, the right one more like 3 times. They don't make gloves good enough to keep that from happening, if somebody decided to take a real good swipe at ya, or if fast moving vulcanized rubber meets finger on the side... I lost some teeth that way too, but that's another tale...

There are virtually no burn scars, which is odd, really. Having been a pretty serious amateur cook my whole life, and professionally for a short time, that's kinda surprising. Even more so having done, let's see... Seven years of wildland firefighting. Never got burned too badly, believe it or not. Actually, the only scar of consequence from those years is on my chin - I fell lighting a back fire on a steep slope and the lighted tip of the drip torch got my chin. Luckily that was in the 80's, when we'd discovered Aloe Vera, and the scars not too bad.

Now cuts, that's different. I do have a good one from cleaning a commercial meat slicer - Don't do that by the way, it hurts. Knife wounds are everywhere, mostly from woodworking. The good ones show where I just about took a finger or two off with a stupid move. The freshest one came last year from a nice sharp chisel that made it all the way to the bone: Don't do that either. Hammer marks, there are a couple; a 32 oz. framing hammer will do that when you miss, good enough to kinda become a tattoo, in fact...

Now that I've taken up guitar building, I sand my hands on a regular basis, which is not fun. Gotta remember that the 6" disc right there by the on-off switch is spinning and covered in 60 grit paper.

It's also amazing that I never cut anything with a chainsaw, especially hands - Oh I did slice a finger or two while sharpening chain, pulling it along without a glove, like an idiot, but nothing as bad as what a moving chain can and will do.


And then there's calluses; mine are left hand, fingertip, because I play enough steel string guitar with medium gauge strings to form 'em and keep 'em. Like Anthony's callus of pride, the knife callus on right index finger, these are the hand features I'm proud of. I don't show off or talk cuts, bruises, scars, etc, but I am downright proud to sport the signature marks of a working guitar player.

I hope I have 'em when I'm in my eighties.