And while Roy is now known as the master carpenter, he first wanted to make a name for himself in theatre arts. So, he graduated with a degree in theatre directing. Fresh out of college, Roy journeyed to Colorado and gathered a theatre group called Homestead Arts. The group failed to gather the attention of the viewers and was shut down in no time.
Roy then moved to Mexico where we joined a socialist commune. The commune claimed that they were making plans to change society. After a while, Roy realized that the commune was not his cup of tea and he moved back to the states to continue his education. One of his professors suggested that Roy should display his skills on television.
The confidence of humankind is based not on superior strength or speed but on our abilities to shape the materials of our environment and to communicate our experiences.
With each swing of the axe, each joining of the wood, you build and preserve within you the living memory of this timeless trade. The satisfaction you gain is well deserved. Don't Tell Me! I became a self-taught blaster, beekeeper, and goatherd. At the time, people were also starting to become aware of the environmental effects of using so much energy. I started rediscovering the ways people did things before electricity. If you wanted a hole, you used a brace and bit; if you wanted to cut, you used a hand saw.
My work was on early technology; looking at how environment and technology affect one another. Felling the tree, milling, then working the wood makes one more of a whole woodworker. You ought to do that on TV. They rejected it at first, but he did not give up. It may have been the fact that I also had an axe in my hand, but this time, they at least let me shoot a pilot.
When Roy teaches, his energy is directed entirely on engaging the students instead of on the work itself. It might sound like an odd approach, but it works incredibly well. It is the unintended consequence of Roy opening his shop to students and the public a few years ago.
Somehow I had the idea that the school should be in an old downtown. That is where the subversive work is being done. Gets you right in the chest. Here Roy prepares to fold himself into a tool chest. Indeed, many of the tourists who visit the school are genuinely floored to see ordinary people make things with their hands and not machines.
Some of the visitors say they have distant relatives who used to build furniture or something with wood. But for many of them, it has never occurred that what happens within those four walls is even possible. For Roy, what happens within those four walls is a simple continuation of his entire adult lifetime.
So that just goes to show you that what you were doing at age 11 could be your destiny. I kept at him with more questions. What, I asked, do you remember about making up your own show?
Roy says his family had a hand-cranked grinder in their shop, and he vividly remembers pretending to be on television while grinding away on a piece of wood that was on its tool rest. M any people think that Roy Underhill is all about returning to the past. What I do is the future. Instead, he is seeking only to influence the future course of human events. And that is the real lesson Roy has been trying to teach us for the last three decades. Yes, he looks like the rube on television sometimes, but inside beats the heart of a professor, a historian, a craftsman, and an entertainer.
He structures his program so it moves fast, almost like you are being mugged, and it is filled with messages that stretch back to the beginnings of civilization and stretch forward beyond our time here. Will we merely consume the resources around us? Or will we build something that outlasts ourselves and everyone we know? Here Bill Anderson demonstrates saw-tooth geometry.
Most people are surprised at first to hear that Roy was a theater major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he trained to be a director and paid for his education by building sets.
But after a couple seconds of thought, they get it. After heading to Colorado to start a theater troupe, Roy and his wife, Jane, moved to a commune in New Mexico that was 17 miles away from the nearest power line. I realized there was this whole technology that had developed and that was flourishing before rural electrification in the s. That was a real revelation for the practical solutions for living the way we did. Stock prep made fun.
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