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July 10, 2025
Sublime Rambling
English Epistle #16
By Vicki L. George
The Bandera Prophet
March 30, 1998
Most of you know that Hubby is the supervisor for the telecommunications team on this job. There are other teams here, too, but they’re not relevant to my story.
One of the members of Hubby’s team is a man named Jackie W. He’s from Mississippi, is a Cajun guy, and he’s also retired doing this job as a contractor. He makes most of his living now from his art. He carves in wood; sometimes he does small objects by hand but usually he does large subjects by chain saw.
The rest of the team provided Jackie with a large tree trunk at the job site about three weeks ago and one of the local men on another team loaned him a chain saw. Jackie carved a beautiful American Indian head. A few days later a member of the architect’s staff dropped by and was so impressed he called the local media and it was arranged for Jackie to go on the telly!
The architect’s assistant is Mr M. and he arranged to meet Jackie and Hubby and me in St. Ives at the Tregenna Castle Hotel. There was a large tree stump there, a sycamore that had to be cut down by the architect. Originally it was thought to have an art class do something with it but then it was decided not to for safety reasons. After Mr M. had seen Jackie’s work, he decided Jackie could carve that for the television crew and it would be left as a decoration for the grounds of the hotel. Now, Hubby always takes care of the men on his crew so he told them all that they could come, too, if they wanted. And they wanted! There were five other men, all Americans.
Monday was the big day. Mr M. stopped by the hotel with a map and said it was set for 10 a.m. that morning. We took two cars and met out there in the lobby. When the television crew arrived, and a newspaper reporter, we all walked round back to the woods. When we got down there, Mr M. started out introducing us to the anchorwoman. With the camera rolling, he introduced Jackie as the man they came to see. Then he introduced Hubby as Jackie’s boss. He then looked around at our whole group, looked back at the anchorwoman, and waving his arm toward us, he said, “And this is America.”
They provided Jackie with two chain saws. He started with the larger one and when it got dull he switched to the smaller one while a couple of men from our crew sharpened the first one. It took him about 55 minutes to carve an American Indian head. All of it was captured on tape, he was interviewed and photographed. Of course, every one of us in Jackie’s entourage took pictures, too.
It was on the telly that evening as a two-minute human interest story during the news. Two days later a short article with photo appeared in the local paper. Later that week the television station left two copies of the tape at the hotel, one for Jackie and one for Hubby.
When I told Hubby I wanted to see the carving Jackie had done at the job site, he said it was too late. One of the men whose turn it was to go home had bought it and, somehow, managed to fly it back to the States with him. Since Jackie sells his larger works for hundreds of dollars, I can only imagine what kind of duty that guy must have had to pay to get it through customs. Not to mention the extra weight on the flight.
So ended another exciting episode of our English adventure!
One of the members of Hubby’s team is a man named Jackie W. He’s from Mississippi, is a Cajun guy, and he’s also retired doing this job as a contractor. He makes most of his living now from his art. He carves in wood; sometimes he does small objects by hand but usually he does large subjects by chain saw.
The rest of the team provided Jackie with a large tree trunk at the job site about three weeks ago and one of the local men on another team loaned him a chain saw. Jackie carved a beautiful American Indian head. A few days later a member of the architect’s staff dropped by and was so impressed he called the local media and it was arranged for Jackie to go on the telly!
The architect’s assistant is Mr M. and he arranged to meet Jackie and Hubby and me in St. Ives at the Tregenna Castle Hotel. There was a large tree stump there, a sycamore that had to be cut down by the architect. Originally it was thought to have an art class do something with it but then it was decided not to for safety reasons. After Mr M. had seen Jackie’s work, he decided Jackie could carve that for the television crew and it would be left as a decoration for the grounds of the hotel. Now, Hubby always takes care of the men on his crew so he told them all that they could come, too, if they wanted. And they wanted! There were five other men, all Americans.
Monday was the big day. Mr M. stopped by the hotel with a map and said it was set for 10 a.m. that morning. We took two cars and met out there in the lobby. When the television crew arrived, and a newspaper reporter, we all walked round back to the woods. When we got down there, Mr M. started out introducing us to the anchorwoman. With the camera rolling, he introduced Jackie as the man they came to see. Then he introduced Hubby as Jackie’s boss. He then looked around at our whole group, looked back at the anchorwoman, and waving his arm toward us, he said, “And this is America.”
They provided Jackie with two chain saws. He started with the larger one and when it got dull he switched to the smaller one while a couple of men from our crew sharpened the first one. It took him about 55 minutes to carve an American Indian head. All of it was captured on tape, he was interviewed and photographed. Of course, every one of us in Jackie’s entourage took pictures, too.
It was on the telly that evening as a two-minute human interest story during the news. Two days later a short article with photo appeared in the local paper. Later that week the television station left two copies of the tape at the hotel, one for Jackie and one for Hubby.
When I told Hubby I wanted to see the carving Jackie had done at the job site, he said it was too late. One of the men whose turn it was to go home had bought it and, somehow, managed to fly it back to the States with him. Since Jackie sells his larger works for hundreds of dollars, I can only imagine what kind of duty that guy must have had to pay to get it through customs. Not to mention the extra weight on the flight.
So ended another exciting episode of our English adventure!