ADVENTURES WITH ASPIRING ARCHITECTS
It was an adventure! It was a little depressing as well though. I had to go to the sawmill to buy some oak for a small job I am doing. As I pulled into the parking space by the front of the wood barn, two young ladies dressed in the uniform of the young came scampering out of the door of the wood barn. They were wearing tight tight (sic) jeans and revealing tank tops with boobs and bellies hanging out, and sandals – hardly what one would expect for proper, or even just safe attire at a sawmill. Driving past the big roll up door, I saw that the barn was crammed with girls dressed much in the same way, with one or two boys in the mix for variety. My first thought was, these don’t look like regular customers.
Well, they weren’t. As I strode into the barn, an older girl (although still not as old as I) popped out of the group and exclaimed, “Well there you are at last!”
“Who, me?” I replied.
“Yes, you. We need some help here.”
“But I don’t work here.”
“Well you’re wearing one of their shirts!” she exclaimed. I realized immediately how she had come to her assumption as I stared down at my own chest, which was proudly displaying the name and logo of the sawmill. I told her it had been given to me and I wore it in gratitude. I then went on to say that someone should be along presently, but in the meantime I would help them out if I could. She informed me that they were from one of the local universities, and the kids were in Furniture 101 class. I asked if they were all woodworking majors. “Oh no”, she replied, “these are all architectural majors. They need to take this class as part of their degree program.”
The immediate problem at hand was one of the girls whining (yes, whining) that she did not know how much a board was going to cost her. She had a price sheet, but there was no information to be had on the board itself. I asked the group in general if anyone had a tape measure with them. You can imagine the answer. I retrieved my tape from the truck, and told them that they needed to figure out the board feet of a board to determine the cost. I was rewarded with a set of blank looks. By this time I had about eight young ladies and one professor clustered about, waiting for me to reveal the mystery of the board foot. I asked the group if anyone knew what a board foot was. The professor lady piped up immediately to tell me that this was beginning furniture, and they did not go into complicated stuff like that in this course.
I looked her dead in the eye and said, “Well if you are going to begin building furniture, it is a good idea to know how much wood to buy, don’t you think?” She just looked sheepish and hung her head a bit. I turned to the group and told them that I was going to show them the secret method for determining board footage. Taking the board in question from the one young lady, I measured it across its width – 4 ½” . I said, “This board is 4 ½” wide. For the purposes of determining cost, we will call it 5”, which is what the sawmill people will do. I then measured its length, which turned out to be 10’. I asked, “How many inches are in ten feet? They got that one pretty quickly, 120 inches. Things went rapidly downhill after that.
I asked the group in general, “What is 120 times 5?” There was dead silence for a space of about 15 to 20 seconds, while they all looked at me like I had three heads. I felt like I was talking to fourth graders. Finally one young lady in the rear said in a soft and quavering voice, “Six hundred?” “Very good!” I replied, while my heart sank. I knew the next question was going to be even tougher. I said, “Now we need to divide 600 by 144. What is 600 divided by 144?” No one spoke. Finally a girl volunteered that she had found a calculator over on the desk. I said, “600 divided by 144 is approximately four, but you might want to check me with the calculator.” I turned to the girl with the calculator and said, “Divide 600 by 144 and tell me what you get.”
As she started to push buttons, I said to her, “Why are you dividing by 144?” in my best classroom voice. She froze, and looked at me with that ‘deer in the headlights look’. I could just tell by her expression that she was hoping the floor would open up to swallow at least one of us. Finally I said, “You are dividing by 144 because I told you to, right?”
“Yes!” She exclaimed with obvious relief.
“NO!” I exclaimed right back. “You are dividing by 144 because that is how many square inches are in one board foot! One board foot equals 12” x 12” x 1” thick. That is why you are dividing by 144!”
By this time the whiny girl had been able to do these complex mathematical operations in her head, and she whined that the board was going to cost her $20.00. She had taken a bit of initiative and multiplied the board footage by the price per board foot on the sheet she had. “Very good!” I exclaimed. Meanwhile my heart sank even further, thinking that this must be one of the reasons why woodworkers and carpenters curse architects on a regular basis. Basic math was beyond these kids. You would have thought I was asking them to solve a polynomial or calculate a logarithm in their heads instead of doing simple multiplication and division.
After our short lesson they all scattered to find boards suitable for their task at hand, which according to the professor was hand cut dovetails and turned mallets. I would love to be there to see that. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t. I got my oak, traded some stories with the folks at the sawmill, and returned to my shop, contemplating the sad state of education these days. These kids are attending a very prestigious university near me which is noted for its engineering school. I wonder if the architects are as highly regarded.
Bill