What follows is a story about an immortal fridge, a dead crab named Ichabod, root beer, and The Golden Rule.

Do you remember those really old refrigerators that had a gargantuan pull handle that went ka-klunk, the kind that might be described, chillingly, in the dark in the basement in the pages of a Steven King book? They hummed along, day and night, loudly compressing moisture out of the air and pushing that cool, dry goodness into a  can of wet soda pop.

My grandparents had one. It was in their farmhouse cellar, filled with A&W Root Beer for me, Mountain Dew for my Grandpa and sister, and a Pony Pack of Miller Lights for my mom. 8 oz’ was all she could handle, so a Pony Pack would last for 6 visits — no more, no less. My grandparents would make my sister and I wait until after dinner, and then give us the go ahead to get ourselves drinks, as long as we took orders from the adults and brought something up for them as well. It was scary and dimly lit down in the cellar, but, I mean, come on — there’s Root Beer down there, so let’s go, sis, and hold my hand.

The Pony Packs didn’t actually make it 6 visits — 2 or 3 if I’m being honest — but it makes my mom look bad if I say anything less than 4.

I was still pulling drinks out of there in 2004, when my Grandma finally moved out after my Grandpa passed away. Mind you, this rusty, clunky, chunky old white grandma fridge was built in the 1950s, and I’d give it a better than zero chance it’s still being used by whoever bought the farm house. I’m sure it weighed more than a horse, so it’s at least still down there, even if it did eventually croak after 50+ years.

Speaking of croaking, sometimes there were frogs in the cellar, sunning in the dark. My Grandma scrubbed the ancient cement floor with bleach — indeed — but a farm frog is always gonna find a cool cellar in the summer. In the middle of the room, two raw wooden tree trunk-lookin’ things held the entire house up. And on a shelf, in a small aquarium bowl, remained the remains of Ichabod, a hermit crab we killed when we moved from Colorado to Minnesota in a vintage 1980 January. 10 year old Steve didn’t know that a crab can’t handle minus 20F temps in the back of a 1974 Ford LTD Country Squire station wagon. We put him down there, thinking “he might wake up,” and that’s where he stayed, trying to play dead longer than the fridge could stay alive. He might lose that bet — the fridge was built when companies served their customers well. I’m sure he’s still sitting there, hiding in the aquarium rocks, keeping a quiet watch on things, his perfect dead claws sticking out ready to grab any sister named Heidi who stood in front of a brother named Steve who said, “Boo!”

I don’t know why I remember this beast of an appliance with such clarity — was it the handle? The Root Beer? My Grandma showing me how to open a beer bottle with my bare hands when I was maybe 11? I dunno. But I think of it a lot more than most things I should have forgotten.

Keep reading. I’ll come back to this.

I was at a tuba show at the end of Jan, in Arlington, VA. Every 3rd tuba player was walking around that show carrying one of our bags — there had to have been 500 tubists attending, and the room sounded like a recorded bee hive tuned down 6 octaves. Note: I said “tubists,” not “people.” There’s a difference. A LOT of them were old, like, 15 and 20 years old — the bags, silly — and many of the proud owners came up to confirm what we already knew: There was nothing wrong with their bag, folks, after all those years. “Do you have one that fits the new Meinl Weston?” They’d ask. 

“Of course we do!” 

But that’s not the punchline you’re looking for. It’s not even a punchline. Hang with me, now.

I recently took over the Cronkhite and Torpedo Bags sales@ inboxes, and I took the opportunity to write 13 template responses to save my time and sanity. I honed my response to “Can you design a bag for this double-barreled trombone?” and I carefully crafted one for the 19 people who ask me every day, “Where’s the case I ordered?”

I get it — it’s coming — you’re gonna love it — ask the cats at that tuba show who never have to buy a bag again.

The template I wrote for the First Time Buyer, though, took up almost a full day for me. I really wanted to reveal to people how our bags are actually different. 

Fundamentally, holistically, plainly … different. 

I put what I wrote at the bottom of this email, in case you want to see it. It’s a good summation of the case I’ve been trying to make for 25 years, and the reason I knew I’d be a good match for Glenn’s line 8 years ago. After 25 years of trying not to rip anyone off, I started asking myself … why.

Why do I make bags and cases of such high quality? 

The answer is no joke.

Wait. Is there a joke coming up? Is it a dad joke? A bad joke? A bad dad joke? Dang, I hope so.

A few weeks after the tuba show, I drove to a huge store in the midwest. Huge, as in “one employee bathroom has 40 sinks” huge. I took it upon myself to create a new brochure for this trip, and spent a day marrying my philosophy of design to a specification list of all the ways in which we meet the philosophy. 

I ended up with two parts: 

Why we make bags that don’t fall apart — the philosophy of junk bags vs. bags made like my Grandma’s fridge.

And…

How we make bags that don’t fall apart —  the list of techniques and materials.

The how, I discovered through this thought exercise, has to follow the why. Think about it: “Why? Because I want to be associated with quality” has a much different How? than, “Why? Because I want to make a lot of money selling a voluminous quantity of cheap bags, which I want to fall apart so I can sell the same bag to the same person 3 years later.” 

The “How?” ——> follows ——> The “Why?”

The sales people I was there to inform came up to my table, one by one:

“Here: Hold this stick bag in your hands. It screams quality, right? [Obvious yes’s all around] Look: When a customer calls and you introduce them to our line, at first they’re going to be skeptical at the premium. At first they’re going to think you’re trying to wring some extra bit of their cash from their wallet. But when it arrives? They will immediately know that you were steering them in the right direction, and you will be their best friend. But, if you sell them any other brand, it’s gonna die on purpose in 2-3-4 years. And you will be nothing more to them than a salesman who does not enjoy their loyalty. Who will sell more in the long term: Their best friend … or a salesman?”

I got this from a tubist the other day — I probably get one of these every week:

“I’ve been meaning to send this to y’all but have just now gotten the chance.

I recently bought my first Cronkhite gig bag for my F tuba and I wasn’t sure what I would think of your product. A couple weeks after I received my order I took my first audition in seven years, having not played much that entire time. I felt good, strong, and had planned every detail so I’d have a stress free audition.

As I was unpacking my instruments from my car and loading them on a rolling device I use, one of the worst things imaginable happened: While situating my instruments with bungee cords, my F tuba, in the Cronkhite, starting falling toward the ground of the parking lot. It was terrible watching this happen in slow motion, but I couldn’t stop it. The horn hit the ground hard and I was sure my audition was over before it started.

I quickly scrambled and opened the bag to assess the damage, but the gig bag actually protected the horn enough so that no damage was done. I was so relieved. The audition went well and I ended up in the finals. That wouldn’t have been possible without my horn and the horn wouldn’t have made it without your bag. Thanks for making a great product! I have a …[censored] Bag I love for my C tuba but have decided to switch to a Cronkhite for that horn. Mostly because it’s so heavy and I don’t think it would have protected the instrument like the Cronkhite did.

Again, thank you for a great product.

Best,
Justin”

Tubas weigh a lot more than a sax or a guitar. Our bags can carry 30 pounds or more, every day, for 10-20-30-40 years, and the tuba world thanks us for making them so well. On the other hand, I had a buddy in the shop with his brand new tuba and the OEM bag that came with it — a major brand — and there were already 6 things broken on the bag, from stitches to clips to zippers. It was 6 days old! 

I saw a new keyboard bag in a store I was at, a brand everyone knows. I saw that the main zipper was already broken — Still in the plastic! It likely hadn’t even been unzipped a single time, and…

    it…

        was…

            BROKEN!

Arrgghh! We don’t have to put up with this! I’m literally here for you.

You’ve heard of the Golden Rule, right? 

Treat others the way you want to be treated.

This is magically both the how and the why of it.

Treat others the way you want to be treated.

I’ve been in this industry a long time, and I’m convinced I don’t have a single competitor.

Now go get some Root Beer for yourself, say hi to Ichabod, and bring up that Pony Pack for my mom. It’s in the fridge, in the basement, enduring in my memory because the maker gave a damn.

–Steve

PS: Don’t slip on a frog, yo.

All right, I teased a joke —>

“Did you hear about the bass player who was so despondent about his time that he threw himself behind a bus?”

Amen, sister.

CLICK FOR MORE! “GROANER’S DELIGHT” VOLUME ONE.

In the late 90s, I played in a local per service orchestra for a while. It was a bit of a sketchy outfit, and the violin section had some real characters in it — they were always bickering with each other over bowings, intonation, and who’s turn it was to sleep with the conductor.

One concert, we played the Prokofiev / Lt Kije Suite, which is one of those rare classical pieces that tastefully utilized the tenor saxophone. We hired a local pro, Kipp McGillicuddy, but he missed the first two rehearsals due to not getting the emails we sent to him — his AOL dialup account was never online, because his first wife was ALWAYS on the phone with her mother, talking about how Kipp was still making a living as a musician, and speculating as to when he would get a real job.

Anyway, we had only one more rehearsal, and since Kipp was AWOL on AOL, we had no choice but to bring in another saxophone player. Her name was Claire de Jeune Lune, a French doctoral exchange student in Eugene Rousseau’s studio at the University of Minnesota. She was also taking improvisation lessons from the legendary Herman von Schlutzenfreud of New Ulm, and was said to have quickly learned all the changes.

Hours before our penultimate rehearsal for the big concert, Kipp finally got into his AOL account. Noticing the gig rehearsal schedule, and understanding his reputation in this town was in serious peril, he put on his finest Friday casual wear, and made sure to be at the hall exactly 15 minutes early. Claire beat him by 5 minutes, wearing a sweater that honestly hung a bit lower in the back than was comfortable for the rest of the woodwind section, nearly driving the trombone section to leave for The Ground Round early. They say deep breathing is essential for getting a great tone, and that evening, the winds had never sounded better.

Upon seeing Claire in his chair, Kipp was immediately pleased with his decision to dress it up a bit, even more so when he remembered he wore his new brown leather penny loafers. Claire, being French, was equally well put together that evening, and nearly knocked the wind out of Kipp when she said hello, in English, but also in French, if you know what I mean.

The conductor decided to allow each to run through the well known solo excerpt in the second movement, “Romance.” Kipp went first, and if I didn’t know better, I’d wager that even his D’Addario Reserve #3 was weeping by the end of the movement. I was listening, but also watching the young Claire watching Kipp. While the left corner of her mouth was turned up in a subtle yet confident smile, at one point I caught her looking at Kipp‘s Mark VI and I noticed she actually bit her lip a bit harder than I think she intended. It took several moments for the rosy color in her lower lip to return. She wasn’t embarrassed by this — she was French.

It was rumored Claire’s grandfather was a friend of Prokofiev, meeting him while on a cultural exchange to Leningrad after the war. It was her turn on the “Romance.” Perhaps for her grandfather, and perhaps to destroy what was left of the trombone section, she melted the room with her phrasing, authentic vibrato, and her Guerlain Shalimar. At the end, everyone knew she’d be on the concert, and would probably get double scale for no good reason.

She looked at Kipp when she was done and said to him in French, “Don’t hate me because I play more beautifully than I look,” but what Kipp heard in English was, “Meet me in practice room #3 on the break.”

And that’s exactly what happened. While the rest of the orchestra ran through the bombastic Bruckner, we all thought we heard fantastic new percussion parts being prepared down the hall. The sounds of intercontinental exchanges in turn set the violin section on edge, as the conductor’s current pairing had recently moved down a chair from concert master Laura Bronstein to concert mistress Jessica Lowe. What started as an up bow “accident” devolved like a short ride in a fast machine into a spontaneous stabbing incident. The tuba player eventually stepped in, after setting down the only book those guys ever read, “Song and Wind (and how to break it),” putting himself between the two ladies and the maestro, who orchestrated the whole mess in the first place.

We called it a night after things cooled down. The concert went well, although we had to hire a substitute concert master from one of the groups across town. And at the end of it, in the lobby, I let the conductor know I would not be returning for the following season.

“Why?” He asked.

“Too much sax and violins,” I replied.

Dad jokes rule.

–Steve Kriesel
President

Say — if you want a GREAT sax bag that will last longer than Prokofiev’s music, check them out HERE.

In 1991, I drank one of Paul Simon’s beers.

I’m exaggerating, but let me tell you how I found myself in the “Rhythm of the Saints” Tour Green Room, chatting it up with Chris Botti, Michael Brecker, and Steve Gadd — Yeah, I know. I was 21.

I was playing trumpet with my college teacher, Robert Baca, on a Thursday or Friday morning. I mentioned I was going to hear Paul Simon play at the then new Target Center in Minneapolis the next night. I didn’t think it would be noteworthy to him, but immediately, he said, “Oh, you should try to say hi to my IU friend Chris Botti! He’s on that gig.”

Well, OK then. Challenge accepted / failure anticipated.

But I was young and dumb enough to think I might be able to contact someone in PAUL SIMON’S FREAKIN’ BAND. I went with my college sophomore roommate Jeremy, my dear friend Jen, and her roommate and our friend Lisa.

I wrote a note ahead of time that went something like this:

“Hi Mr. Botti. I’m a student of Robert Baca, who said I should try to have a conversation with you after the show. I’m sitting in Section 112, Row H, Seat 14. I’m the dorky lookin’ one.”

I flagged down a pimply-faced usher who was on the main floor, tossed my note over the rail that separates those with money from the college kids, and hollered, “Can you get that to the trumpet player in the band?!” He looked at me like I was nuts, and I could read his thought bubble: “No, I don’t think so!”

In desperation, I replied over the crowd noise, “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope!”

I mean, maybe I said that. It was a long time ago.

A few minutes later, the band came out and opened with one of Paul’s hits that didn’t include horns. I went back down to the rail, where I could see Chris noodling off-mic to the side of the stage. I did my best to get his attention, and somehow, he heard me, seeming to acknowledge that I was a complete dork, and that he got my note. The horns walked on to play “You Can Call Me Al,” and I went back to my friends. Somewhere in the middle of “Late in the Evening,” an official-looking lady with an earpiece tapped me on my shoulder, said something over the heavy pulse of the massive band, and handed me a back stage pass. I was suddenly converted into THE coolest person in the stadium, a miracle of miracles, and everyone near us was staring at the patch I proudly stuck on the front of my jeans. Are you kidding me?! I was 21, about to head back stage to meet the Paul Simon Band and maybe even Paul Simon himself.

(Yeah, right — like Paul was gonna hang out with us and sing an 11 PM rendition of “Kumbaya”.)

At any rate, the concert concluded after an incredible 4 hour single set (!!!) split in two by a 45 minute solo break played by the incomparable Michael Brecker. It remains one of the best shows I’ve ever been to, and not just because I got to go back stage. There, I talked to Chris Botti and fan-girled Michael Brecker and Steve Gadd — “OMGOMGOMG!” — it was the first big hang like this of my life, and I’ll never forget it. As a trumpet player, that concert motivated me for years, if not decades.

And yes, I continue to tell myself that the beer I drank was meant for Paul Simon — that’s how close I got to perhaps the greatest songwriter there ever was. I ate some of his cheese and crackers, too. Woof.

Fast forward 33 years — let’s bring the lesson home —

I recently read a Paul Simon biography, written with Paul’s cooperation by author Robert Hilburn (and sent to me by the the same Jen who went to that ’91 concert with me — thanks, Jen!). As a long time fan, I ate it up. And what I remember from the book was how much failure Paul endured in his early years. He had a “neighborhood hit,” in his teens as the duo Tom and Jerry (with Art Garfunkel), and then tried everything for the next 10-15 or so years to be successful in the industry. He wrote jingles, recorded 30 of so songs that tanked, changed his stage name several times, worked for music publishers, copied other artists — he truly studied and tried everything — and was fairy lousy at it for a very, very long time. And we all know what happened to him starting in the early 70s, after he turned 30. In my estimation, Paul developed into the greatest singer songwriter of all time by sheer power of will and maybe a dose of destiny. Check out this 1975 lyric, reprised on one of his most recent albums, Into the Blue Light, as he expresses a deep understanding what we are all trying to do as musicians and humans:

Some folks’ lives roll easy as a breeze
Drifting through a summer night
Heading for a sunny day
But most folks’ lives
Oh, they stumble, Lord, they fall
Through no fault of their own
Most folks never catch their stars

Wow. On the new album, the keyboard is gently replaced by a celeste at the word “Stars.” It’s great. He’s creating in his late 70s with this one. Check it out HERE:

The lesson, kids, is that you just keep working on what you love. Some of you will fail and fail and fail, and some of you will fail and fail and succeed. But we all fail — over and over. Just keep going, my friends, and I hope to share a beer with you someday.

I truly hope you catch your star, in whatever form it takes.

Sincerely,

Steve Kriesel

President
Glenn Cronkhite Custom Cases
Torpedo Bags

My Aunt Jean should probably be your hero, too.

She’s 92.

Last year, she flew overseas to visit my sister. In this case, “overseas” meant South Africa — just a ho hum little trip, right? Uhhh … no. This was a 9 hour flight to Amsterdam, a 4 hour layover, and then 12 hours to Capetown. When you add in waking up, the taxi to the Minneapolis airport, a stop for scones, evading her arrest warrant from some 1970s shenanigans we don’t talk about, and all of that other travel mess, she’s in for well over 30 hours — and we had to get her back, too.

92 YEARS OLD!

She smoked a ton of cigarettes in her day, so this amazing woman is a confounding mystery to us mortals, as well as our example of how to be throughout our one, short life. It was rumored she was once married to Mark Twain, but I think that was made up, probably by me, just now. I will catch hell for this in short order.

Twenty years ago, she generously gave me her entire record collection. These were, of course, the records she collected during the Golden Age of Stereo — about a dozen Ella, maybe 20 Sinatra, a’buncha Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Stan Kenton, Dakota Staton, Basie, Bobby Darin, June Christie — just a ton of great recordings in very, very good condition. I’ve been listening to them ever since, at least once a week on my Klipsch Quartet / Fischer 500C set up. For a long time now, I’ve wanted to have her over and host a straight up listening party, but my large family gets together in larger houses than mine when there is an occasion, so this kept getting put on hold.

Finally, this summer, my cousin Katie needed to get an amp and CD player back from me after repairs. I asked her to come out to my place, “but bring your mother,” and we’d hang out for the day. This was in June, if I recall — I’m about a 1 hour drive for them these days, living high up on the St. Croix River, checking out Minnesota from a 1946 cabin seated on a Wisconsin cliff. It’s nice.

The pair drove out one Sunday. We said hello, I gave a tour and made some jokes, and then I explained my desire to play one of Jean’s records for her. I carefully moved my lounge chair into the sweet spot of the room, and asked everyone to not talk at all for at least one track. My sister, who suffers from FOMO and is a bit of a motor mouth, crashed our party, so this was essential instruction.

“What would you like to listen to, Jean?” I asked.

After a short consideration, she replied with anticipation, “I think … Sinatra.” I believe she knew that this was about to be an above average experience of pure nostalgia, and she settled in.

I had “In the Wee Small Hours” already on the turntable, so this was easy. I clicked on my 1960s-era tube amp — which is always a satisfying sound — explained why this was a very fitting stereo on which to play her music, and started the turntable. The needle grabbed hold of the groove as needles do, and the strings introduced the band as we quieted down. Jean was seated, likely not having been in front of a quality stereo in a good number of years. More importantly, she was hearing music decades and decades after she had picked it out in a record store — the actualrecord she chose was once again playing music for her after all this time. To many of us, these old keepers of the Great American Song Book are like old friends. To Jean and countless others, Frank was her best friend, and they were being reunited in my living room.

Please — if you want to see a moment of pure joy — take a moment to watch her experience. She gave me permission to share this, and I really think it is quite special. This is what happy looks and sounds like.

We make music in this life for one reason: To share and experience joy. Don’t ever forget this, folks.

Don’t ever forget it.

Thank you for the music, Aunt Jean. It will always be in good hands.

With love,

Steve

I was at my daughter’s orchestra concert a few years ago, sitting next to my son, Oliver. We were subjected to the full range of orchestral sounds, from beginnings efforts only a mother could love, to the top orchestra kicking out Stravinsky in ways that most college orchestras can’t touch with a conductor’s baton duct taped to the end of a fishing pole.

The directors had individual kids introduce the titles. This is an oft-practiced confidence building effort, creating poise in these young leaders, a great opportunity deeply feared by the introverts in the clarinet section. “Hi, my name is Sally Johansen. Our next selection was composed by Mozart in 1786….”

During an early applause that day, I whispered to my son that what we really needed was a balcony box for he and I, where we could heckle these kids. Don’t get me wrong, they didn’t deserve heckling. They were great. I just like the thought of being Waldorf to my son’s Stadler. If you’re under the age of 40, you might need to know that Waldorf and Stadler were the grumpy, old Muppets who heckled Kermit during the Muppet Show in the 1970s. I’ve always admired Waldorf and Stadler, aspirational and inspirational characters for my sarcastic brass-playing soul. At any rate, this conversation had my son and I primed for inappropriate giggling at a Very Serious Classical Music Concert.

A new kid approached the mic. His shirt was neatly pressed and tucked in to his black concert pants, cinched tightly above the required black dress shoes. He was as professional as any that day, and he confidently read his short script. While I’m positive his family was proud of him, I was sure I heard him introduce himself as “Grover Mupply.”

I leaned over to my son. “Did he just say his name was Grover Mupply?!?!” 

The giggles began in earnest. We tried to contain ourselves, but once a trumpet player, always a trumpet player, and we bounced and shook well into the second selection played by the following orchestra. It wasn’t actually that funny, but you know how the giggles can take flight.

I later wrote about this inappropriateness in a Facebook post, simultaneously proud and ashamed of my behavior. My friend and trumpeter Bill Simenson saw the post, and took up the chore of writing a big band chart to honor this fictional kid. I believe this is how Prokofiev first conceived of the idea for Lt. Kijé. Bill is also a fantastic composer, and organizes a weekly reading session of his charts the first Tuesday of every month in Minneapolis, holding court in front of The Bill Simenson Orchestra.

That’s right, a kid who didn’t articulate his name to the extreme became a fictional kid, and that fictional kid became a big band composition.

I’ve been asked many times to check out the band, but unfortunately, I was the parent who drove my daughter to most of her orchestra rehearsals…you guessed it, every Tuesday night. On top of having an impossibly busy year, it just never worked out. However, tomorrow night, I will finally be hearing “Grover Mupply”! 

Or, as Bill says, “We’ll Mupple it up.” 

I’m truly excited to hear this chart, and will report back next month!

–Steve and the Gang

PS: The kid’s name turned out to be “River,” and as far as I know, he does not know he is slightly fictionally famous.

PPS: Bill’s CD, “Big Alpaca” can be bought on Bandcamp, and it’s great stuff! One of my old students, Paul Stodolka, is swinging the lead book. You should buy it. 😉

There was a sewing factory down the road apiece that went out of business. I knew the guy, went down there to see what might be available, and ended up buying every sewing machine he had.

One of them was the Famous Ferdinand 900B Bull, a massive block of steel that spent its days impersonating a sewing machine. I swear on my mother’s dusty bible that the needle alone weighed 14 pounds.

Do you remember the actual bull from the child’s book named Ferdinand, the one who only wanted to smell the flowers in the Spanish countryside, until he sat on a bee? Well, our Ferdinand made that Ferdinand look like a baby chipmunk.

About Ferdinand

We got him loaded in after a while. I ended up selling him to a guy who knew what Ferdinand could do. He drove up from Iowa with his wife, and was going to use Ferdie for saddle work. Ferd didn’t have reverse, so for what we do he wasn’t a great machine, but he sure was fun to look at for a few months! I have a few newer versions of him with reverse – same size but somehow 1/5th the weight. These beasts can sew through 1″ thick plywood without any show of strain whatsoever – They might as well be sewing butter, or lace … or a flute player’s psyche.

But they’ll never be as tough as Blanca.

About a year ago, I was working at my shipping table, and I heard a short squeal. One of my sewers had made a mistake – you work around needles that go up and down ten thousand times a day, and sooner or later you’re gonna get bit, sure as a cat in a dog park. But she went back to sewing! What?! One of our ladies went over to her, and so did I – she had run the needle clean through her thumb! Up it came, and I think out of embarrassment and pride she tried to keep sewing. Oh my, no, go home! Wrap that up! This is why we have PTO and MNSure and bandaids and cold packs. Go home!

This was the first time that had happened here, but every one of my sewers told me right then and there that they had ALL gone clean through a digit at least once in their careers.

But they’ll never be as tough as Jairo.

You still reading? I’m just saying, leather work is not for the faint of heart. I’ve hurt myself plenty at work, but usually doing dumb stuff with power tools. Ask Lindsey. She has stories.

I’ve got one more myself. Steel your stomach and read on if you want, no one’s forcing you. This is a bad one, from about 8 years ago.

Before I get into it, I want you to know most of my crew has been with me for many years, and I rarely ask anyone to work overtime or push them for fast production times. But there are a LOT of blades and needles and belts and pulleys and rivet machines and clickers and snap setters and more in a leather goods factory, and there are going to be mistakes. This one is famous.

My cutter’s name is Hairo. He pronounces it like Hydro, rolling the r pretty hard, which I can’t do because I’m a muppet. Others might spell it “Jairo.” Up until last year, he cut every leather bag and nylon bag we ever made, by hand, with a knife made from three bars of steel taped together. He slides the middle bar forward from time to time, when he needs more steel. He sharpens it constantly on a stone he keeps on the table next to his work. Lay up the leather, scan it for marks, lay up the pattern, lay down the straight edge, push it down hard and draw the blade, sharpen sharpen sharpen, draw it again to make sure, rinse and repeat.

It’s that straight edge that scares me, and he really has to push it down hard, with his left hand fingers, right on the edge of the edge. One day I came back from lunch, and noticed a good amount of something blackish-brownish on the floor in the bathroom. I grabbed a towel to clean it up, and under the brown it was … red. “What’s this?” I thought. I went out to the floor, and Hairo was still cutting. I asked if he was OK, and he kinda looked at me, like, no, not so much at all – but he didn’t say much. The bandage was huge. And it didn’t appear to be working! Oh my, go home! How bad is it? Do you need anything? Like, some more blood? I know a guy. Please, sit down, my friend.

He actually came in the next day, but went home right away. You can’t cut leather without a strong left hand. He came back 4 days later, and that’s when he finally showed me his finger – the poor guy had actually…

OK, seriously, why are you still reading?

…he had actually removed a ½ inch piece of his finger – big enough to think that he could put it back where it came from, tape it down long enough and maybe save it. Oh my. Oh m-y-y-y-yeow! Stitches maybe? Too small for that, really, but not by much. Oh my.

That’s leather work.

It’s not easy. It’s hard work. Things are heavy, things are sharp, and things will sting.

Just like that Spanish bee who bit Ferdinand in the butt and got him into all kinds of trouble.

—Steve

Keep safe, everyone. Leave the danger to us.