Of Toys and Constitutions
“Why don’t you make the rolly thingie?” my wife asked. “You know, the one with the balls inside.”
We were discussing the next wooden toy I would make for our one-year-old grandson. The first one, a shape sorter, went through several iterations before I got something where (a) The pieces actually fit into their assigned spaces; (b) The handles could be grabbed by baby fingers; (c) All parts that could go in the mouth were both too large to pose a problem and also non-toxic; and (d) Pieces wouldn’t break when they were tossed on the floor.
I think if we designed everything we make, from kitchen appliances to cars, to withstand what a nine-month-old would put them through, we’d have a lot less broken stuff in our landfills and junkyards.
The illustration above shows what I’m up against.
I knew I was in trouble. I read the instructions, written by someone who obviously knew what he was doing and expected his reader to, as well. I wasn’t that person.
The first hurdle was how to cut perfectly round circles in wood. For this, I turned to that great Internet instructor, Youtube. Here I found endless videos, mostly led by guys, who would lecture you in front of a depressing array of thousands of dollars of equipment, populating a wood shop half the size of my house. They offered up all kinds of solutions, using routers, jigsaws, and (what woodshop video doesn’t have these), specialized jigs. I sensed that if I tried these methods, I’d end up with an assortment of interesting shapes (none circles), losing a finger or two in the process.
Then I had an epiphany: I could just buy wood pre-cut in a circle the diameter I needed. Brilliant, right?
Sort of. Plenty of online outlets sell pre-fab stuff. After wading through several of these options (a lot like Goldilocks here — too big, too small, too thin, too thick, I settled on a few and placed my orders. Then I realized that local stores sold something similar, and I could get my hands on these right away. I happily bought some and brought them home just in time to collide with shipments of all the others. Now I have enough to make all kinds of things. Which is to say, too many of them, but I’ll never admit that. It’s great to be a guy.
Next hurdle: how to make twelve evenly spaced holes, not all the way through, a half-inch or so from the outside edge of these circles. These would hold the dowels, which needed to be cut to exactly the same length, that you see forming the bars holding in the balls. After doing the geometry and getting the marks placed correctly, I was down to two options for this:
1. Get a thousand-dollar drill press and build a work shed to house it; or
2. Something Else
I chose Something Else. I could see those Youtube pros shaking their heads at me passing up this golden opportunity to justify a big-ass tool purchase, but somehow the thought of spending thousands on what would essentially be a one-off solution didn’t make sense to me. (1)
This much simpler solution came with trade-offs, of course, requiring lots of tweaks and adjustments and trials, until I finally worked up enough courage to cut the pieces that would become the wheels of this thing. This was accompanied by prayers and curses, often at the same time, which is how I think God intended us to use the language at times like this.
Finished with this, I now realized I needed to drill a pretty good-sized hole in the exact center of each wheel, so the axle could pass through. More geometry: finding the center of a circle. (2)
Now, anyone who’s worked with wood knows that you generally don’t just drill a large hole in a piece of wood (unless you have that thousand-dollar drill press). There is this thing called “grabbing,” which is exactly what it sounds like. The wood doesn’t like being drilled into (would you?), the drill is aggressive, and if you’re not careful, either the piece will spin on the bit — or you will, if you’re light enough. You drill small holes and then larger ones until you have the size you want. Or do it all at once, if you like swearing (or spinning around).
This was followed by an even bigger challenge — how to drill a major hole partway into the side of a dowel, so the shaft would fit the handle. (This isn’t shown in the drawing, but if you think of how a bicycle’s handlebars join the stem, you get the idea.)
At this point, an intelligent man would have said, “Hey, I really can’t do that. How about a different handle design? As in square pieces?” But no. I am not that man, either.
More prayers and cursing. (Actually, I’m pretty sure the cursing well outdid the prayers on this one.)
There were more handle parts to make, and then it was time for test assembly.
I’m not kidding. This is I think all of two words in the instructions. “Test-assemble.” (This is like the point in bathroom faucet replacement where the instructions say, “Remove old faucet,” a process that generally involves heavy machinery, swearing, blowtorching, and / or dynamite.)
So. You try assembling two handle knobs, a handle crossbar, a handle shaft, a handle brace, three balls, twelve dowel pins, an axle, and two wheels, and then test roll this thing. I remember an old movie scene where they had a burro trying to pick its way off a cliff face with two saddlebags full of nitroglycerin strapped to its back. That didn’t end well, either.
Still, I managed. Then came taking it all back apart and applying some paint to just a few pieces for accent.
Easy, this time around. That’s because when I made the last toy for this little guy — with the understanding that it needed to be absolutely non-toxic — I had spent literally weeks researching, selecting finishes, and eventually settling on non-toxic paint and clear-coat. So no need to do that again.
As Independence Day approaches, I’m on the home stretch with this. Could things still go wrong? Oh, sure. Plus, I’m not the greatest detail painter (and I’m doing some detailing on the wheels, just for “fun”).
When it’s done, it will have its share of flaws. The wheels aren’t completely flat, because I chose solid wood instead of plywood. Solid wood moves, given humidity. Plywood, which is cross-grained, doesn’t. (Plywood is layered wood with grain going in one direction on one layer and in another direction on the next.) The dowel bars mostly fit in the holes, though for some reason a few of them aren’t as snug. The handle crossbar needs to be fitted carefully, because in its unassembled state it lists like a tipsy sailor. The paint job is imperfect.
I know I’m no master at this and will always be learning.
I know this, too. I know there is a little boy who has just learned to walk, who will ignore any of these flaws, who will take this toy and perhaps even realize that there’s a terrific amount of love and struggle bound up in its making. That little boy will happily roll this thing all over the floor, making all kinds of noise and bonking into furniture.
Hopefully it will survive.
I tell you this because this is what it takes to make a toy when you’re not a master. This is what it takes to work with wood if you’re not an experienced craftsman, and to paint detail if you’re not a trained artist. It’s the same with writing if you’re not an accomplished writer; or music if you’re not a dedicated composer; or tennis, if you’re not on the court day in and day out.
What matters most is the effort, the persistence. It won’t be right. It never will be right. Nor will it be complete. But it will be right enough and complete enough to be used. And, I daresay, loved.
I want you to think about this now, while we are on this journey between Memorial Day and Independence Day. Between, as I like to say, Remembrance and Revolution. Between two activities that define us, as they have defined many nations.
We forged our own nation the way I made this toy — using what models I had, with skills (or lack) at my disposal and tools that were sufficient but not the best. I looked at models of what had been done before, learned what I could, took a deep breath, and began.
Our founders lived through a revolution, tried to work within a framework we scarcely remember (the Articles of Confederation), and then tried again with a Constitution they knew would be praised by some and vilified by others. Using the tools they had, the skills they could muster, and consulting every example they could, they put together with love and struggle a document they suspected would not last but that would describe how the government would be structured and would function, as well as how the rights of the people who authorized it would be protected.
They were wrong about one thing. They didn’t think the Constitution would last — not at least without ongoing revision; and, in Thomas Jefferson’s opinion, not even twenty years. (3)
This Constitution, this document, has often inspired how people around the world construct their own governments, self-directed more or less, as case and culture may allow. We invoke it today, sometimes with reverence, sometimes declaring it nothing more than paper — as the founders would sometimes call it nothing more than mere parchment (4).
Is it right? No, not completely. Is it whole? Not by a long shot. And the founders knew that as well, remarking that, even as they based their first laws on it, they were already interpreting it. (5)
Do we struggle with it? Of course we do. Humans are ever thirsty for both freedom and order (6). It’s no different in America. Here, as anywhere, we struggle to balance progress with restraint, permissiveness with rules, freedom with law, and ultimately, my views on this versus yours. But, as has been declared, in far more dangerous circumstances, we are all still here. (7)
As I mentioned above, describing the wheels on my grandson’s toy, wood is less prone to split when it’s cross-grained. It’s why plywood was invented — to help scroll saw artisans create more durable works of art.
So with people. We are durable because we are cross-grained, even if it sometimes drives us up our respective walls. Alloys, however much heat is expended in their making, are stronger than the metals that form them.
Forging this Constitution, the founders used all their skills and debated as much as they could endure — just as I used my skills to make the best toy I could for my grandson. We are at our best when we all participate in both the love and the struggle that attends forming a more perfect union. No one can afford to build a nation at the expense of a third or a half of it; nor can we benefit by name-calling the other side, declaring ourselves superior, when what is common among all of us is that we are all human; we all breathe the same air; and we are all mortal. (8) To separate is to disintegrate, and there are plenty who would revel in our disintegration.
Let’s not give them that opportunity. Between Remembrance and Revolution, we in America (as in any great nation) have the capacity and can and must find the will to become unified on the things that matter — our common planetary wealth, and the opportunities arising from using it wisely — leaving the sniping and personality cult issues and all the rest of the pettiness in the dust where it belongs.
Enjoy your Independence holiday. Pause amid the fireworks and give thanks that we are still free to express ourselves and to share ideas, as I have tried to do here. (9)
Let’s keep the love and the struggle going, using and revising as needed our grandchildren’s toy, that Constitution, to be wheeled around, to be banged into furniture, to make its joyful noise, and, in all this, to be passed on with all its faulty, persistent fame, to the latest generation.
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(1) I realize that in the larger scheme of things we as a nation make all kinds of massive investments like this, usually military, under a doctrine that ought to be called MAS, or Mutually Assured Stupidity, which has its roots in the phrase “If we don’t build the biggest and the best, the other guy will,” a form of primate oneupsmanship that’s been around since oh, I don’t know, our African savannah days, and only recently have we sterilized it into a capitalist phrase, “competitive advantage,” as if that’s something new. But I digress.)
(2) And more Youtubes. These ranged from the somewhat complicated to the kinds of proofs you’d use to argue a specific side of the “supreme being” question. I finally stumbled on one so simple, it was overlooked by all those who (like me) were devoting too much frontal cranial space to this. I’ll give it to you here. Trace the circle you have onto a sheet of paper. Cut out the circle. Fold the circle in half. Fold the half-circle in half, so you have a one-quarter wedge. Using scissors, cut the smallest bit you can from the corner of that quarter. Unfold the paper. The hole you have made is in the center. Of course, this isn’t as likely to work if your circle is the size of your municipal water tower, but then again, you’re not likely to need to find the center of that, anyway.
(3) Instead, it’s well over two hundred years old and doggoned hard to change, too: see https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/180931
(4) It’s especially telling to read Madison describing the yet-to-be-ratified Constitution as parchment barriers when describing the challenge of appropriately separating governmental powers in such a way that the power inherent in authorization (i.e., what the executive, legislative and judiciary are empowered to do) is balanced against how they might be held accountable (the limits imposed upon this empowerment – generally expressed today on both sides of the political spectrum as accusations of executive or judicial overreach (and these accusations themselves may reflect a growing perceived impotence in the legislative branch)). Madison: “Will it be sufficient to mark, with precision, the boundaries of these departments, in the constitution of the government, and to trust to these parchment barriers against the encroaching spirit of power?” (Federalist 48)
(5) As you can see in chapter XI of Original Meanings, Jack Rakove (Vintage, 1997) - whether or not you have an opinion on originalism, you can see the first legislators (some of whom were participants in the Constitutional Convention) struggling with how to put the Constitution into practice, knowing they were already interpreting it as they did so.
(6) Or energy and stability, as James Madison puts it so well in Federalist 37, when describing what is desired in government — necessitating both change and order, the paradox of any era.
(7) The “someone once famously said” refers to that moment, just hours into the invasion of Ukraine, when President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flashed a collective selfie with his leadership team on the streets of Kyiv and said, defiantly, “We are all [still] here.” No matter your feelings about the Ukraine conflict, it’s a stirring moment in history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkNiYYzHeDs
My memory is faulty – but I recall that early in the conflict, someone asked Zelenskyy how he felt his role had changed. His answer: “For one thing, I am learning what it means to be a citizen.”
(8) From JFK, lifted with a bit of liberty - here’s the full context:
“…So, let us not be blind to our differences — but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.”
— Commencement speech, American University, June 10, 1963
(9) I do mean “still,” because I am troubled by hate speech, book bans, editing of past masterpieces because words were used in them that might be found offensive today, laws creating fears of missteps and removal of ideas, and all such other curtailments on expression. Yes, ideas can be (or seem) dangerous – but the response to this is less about shielding from and more about arming against. You need to hear what others have to say in order best to understand not only whether their argument has some truth in it (almost any argument does), but also to realize that if you would continuously learn, you may learn your hardest (and, tellingly, most resonant) lessons from those who oppose you. Alternatively, you may strengthen your own arguments. Just avoid hardening your heart in the process. More on this to come.
