nails

so i was thinking about nails. Not the kind on your fingers, but the kind you hold things together with. Specifically, I was thinking about trunnels. "Trunnel" is a colloquial contraction of "tree nail," which is the name that was given to the wooden pegs that used to be pounded into post-and-beam houses to hold them together. They were of two varieties, either split out square from a tree branch or trunk, or formed round. The square variety used to be pounded into a drilled hole (which was round, of course), and the parts that did not fit sheared off, so that the trunnel completely filled the round hole. This is where the phrase "square peg in a round hole" came from. It's modern meaning is something that dos not fit, that is in the wrong place. The original application, however was using a context (the round hole) to make an existing situation(square peg) applicable. I like that idea more, myself.

Anyway, tonight I was thinking about trunnels. A couple of summers ago I was with a friend in a place that is the kind of place that people make things like trunnels. And there was this elderly gentleman sitting with a pile of "billets," which are the square pieces that have been split out of the tree, and a circular chisel, and passersby could try their hand at making a trunnel. Interesting to watch. My friend knew this guy, and he chatted for a minute and then sat down to pound a billet through the circular steel hole. Tap tap tap. Quiet little hits, almost timid. Took a while. eventually, a perfectly round trunnel fell out of the bottom. I was watching him thinking "man, you could really send that through with a couple of good hits. Why is he holding back?"

He looked at me and offered me a turn. True to form, I lined up my billet, and raised the mallet.

WHANG WHANG WHANG!!!!

Out of the bottom falls a sort-of-trunnel, rounded on one side, but only rounded on the other for an inch or so, and square the rest of the way up. My friend looks at me and says, "No, you need to tap it through, so that you can alter how you hit it, depending on it's angle as it goes through."

Oh.

So I was thinking about this today. About how misguided one's actions can be if one does not stop to fully grasp the nuances of a situation. I need a lot of reminding in this regard.