My boyhood blacksmith

Posted 1/16/19

Here’s a tale of an errant horseshoe. It’s a tale that began near the handsome old shack you see in the photo.

Cap Dunn, a blacksmith, lived there. See that big oak? Cap’s blacksmith shop …

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My boyhood blacksmith

Posted

Here’s a tale of an errant horseshoe. It’s a tale that began near the handsome old shack you see in the photo.
Cap Dunn, a blacksmith, lived there. See that big oak? Cap’s blacksmith shop stood near it. Inside it was dark and the coals glowed red-yellow. Cap hammered molten metal into shape in that small shop.
I’d hear Cap’s anvil ringing in my boyhood days, and I’d venture over to watch him hammer iron. The sparks would fly and the metal would ring.
He’d plunge red-hot iron into a bucket of water and steam would rise with a mighty hiss. His hammering had rhythm. He was striking blows with precision and purpose.
One day I asked him a favor: “Would you make me a set of horseshoes?”
He did. It was my first set, and I loved those flat, lightweight shoes. They were nothing like the thick, heavy professional sets.
Cap fashioned me a set of shoes from some scrap metal he had. Didn’t charge me a cent. Old Cap didn’t know it at the time, but he was saving me a lot of grief when he hammered out that thin set of shoes.
Dad gave me two iron stakes, and I was in business. I made a horseshoe pit out in what we call the football field. It was an expanse of grass with two pines at one end that made a makeshift field goal when we hung a pole across them.
Whenever I could, I’d get some fellows together to play football there back when those pines were skinny, nothing like the big pines they are today. Outside of some roll the bat and football, we mostly played horseshoes there.
Many days, my boyhood friend Thomas would ride his bike over to play horseshoes. We played a lot, though, I don’t recall who won most games.
I do know who threw the most powerful shoe.
That would be my sister, Brenda. One day she and I were playing a spirited game.
We would toss our shoes, and walk down to the other stake to see who got points. That’s how singles go.
Then a fateful moment arrived. A shoe slipped from Brenda’s hand and ended up halfway between the stakes. I walked on down to pick up my shoes. Brenda didn’t.
Without looking she picked up the errant shoe and slung it again. Had you been there you would have heard a clunk ring out.
Had it been one of today’s regulation shoes I might have ended up in the hospital. As it was, I didn’t even need stitches.
Brenda was sorry, but that did little to stop the bleeding. Looking back, I owe her thanks. A knock in the head can do some good.
Maybe we need to put horseshoe pits all over the place. Welcome to the school of hard knocks. Let a few errant throws do their magic.
But we need lightweight horseshoes made by a blacksmith like Cap Dunn. Those big heavy ones could send a soul to the next level.
Once again I realize how lucky I was to grow up when we played outdoors, rather than sit inside with a digital device in our hand.
How many kids today can say they live near a blacksmith? None, I’d wager.
Today, when I look across Augusta Highway, I don’t see an old shack collapsing into the earth.
I see a boyhood spent in the presence of a man who’s a rarity today, an honest-to-goodness blacksmith, one who helped me have a lot of fun and saved my skull in the process.

blacksmith, tom poland, down south

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