From tree to table

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 17th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: part two of a story about a dream for community and a table big enough to gather it around.

Yesterday we listened as a pile of honey-locust boards turned from a motley collection of 20-year old lumber into a beautiful table.

EICHER: When we left them they had a 600 pound problem in the room—specifically not in the room and that’s the problem: How to get that big table from McClendon’s workshop to the Williamsons’ home.

Here’s WORLD’s Julie Spencer with the rest of the story.

STUART MCCLENDON: Hey, Brent!
BRENT WILLIAMSON: Hey, how are you?
AUDIO: [Men’s voices, truck and ramp sounds]

JULIE SPENCER, CORRESPONDENT: It’s after lunch on the last day of September. White clouds are piled high in the humid air—rain has been threatening all day. Brent Williamson and four other men come to Stuart McClendon’s workshop with a big box truck.

AUDIO: [Truck sounds]

They back it up between skinny pine and oak trees. Ray Cook, McClendon’s fellow craftsman, cut branches from the trees just so the truck can make it right up to the shop door.

During the 90 minute loading process, Katie Williamson and the four Williamson kids are home sweeping out the garage and moving furniture to make a path through the house to the dining room. While Katie is anticipating a place to gather the young and old, friends and strangers—the kids have their own ideas about the table.

JSPENCER: Tell me what you’re most excited about the table--are you gonna do homework on this table? ABIGAIL: Probably. CHARLOTTE: We’re going to have ancient feasts! JSPENCER: What kind of food do you plan to have at your ancient feast? CHARLOTTE: Alligator!

Cook and the men carefully swaddle the tabletop in quilted white blankets, then carry this 600 pound baby through the shop, pausing every 30 seconds or so to rest from their work.

The scene is reminiscent of a beloved passage Brent Williamson, a forester, reads here from his copy of A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold. The book is a tribute to the work of caring for creation.

BRENT: ...our saw was biting its way, stroke by stroke, decade by decade, into the chronology of a lifetime, written in concentric annual rings of good oak.’ ‘Rest, cries the chief sawyer and we pause for breath’...

Once the table is secured inside the truck with straps and bungee cords, it’s ready for its first—and probably only—outing.

AUDIO: [TRUCK DOOR SLAMS SHUT]

The rain clouds burst just as the truck pulls out onto the highway.

AUDIO: [GRAVEL AND HIGHWAY]

Twenty minutes later the rain stops as the truck backs up the Williamsons’ driveway. Katie and the four kids—Victoria, John David, Charlotte, and Abigail—are waiting in the garage. Abigail, the youngest, skips around the empty space.

BRENT: I need y’all to stay out of the way, okay? I mean, you can watch, I just don’t want you to get in the way when it’s coming down.

Cook climbs into the truck and directs the unloading of the table.

AUDIO: “Hold on, hold on” “Pick it up a little bit,” shuffling sounds, “Rest it on there,” “Y’all got it?”

The men shuffle through the garage, pause for breath in the living room and finally make their way into the dining room. They begin by turning the tabletop upside down onto sawhorses.

Over the next half hour, Cook attaches the legs and central pedestal with a total of 144 screws. McClendon hands Cook each screw. He encourages him with a “Good, good” every time.

AUDIO: [Drill sound, “Beautiful,” drill sound, “About it,” drill sound, “The last screw”]

The moment has finally come to turn the table over and settle it in its new home.

AUDIO: [Talking, creaking, and everyone sighs as the table is placed on the floor, Abigail says “Oh MY!”]

There is a moment of silence as everyone stares at the newest member of the Williamson family. The chandelier lights glow in the table’s glossy surface. A diamond of the reddish-gold wood anchors the center of the table. Carefully selected boards in alternating shades of cream and red fan out from there—twelve feet of beauty drawn from the thorny honey locust tree.

Katie offers McClendon and Cook pie and coffee.

MCCLENDON: Cream and sugar, lots of sugar. Let’s pull up some chairs!

The conversation turns from wood and table-making woes to life. McClendon reviews the 40-odd years he’s known Cook, through years of alcoholism and now sobriety.

MCCLENDON: Ray’s really special.
COOK: I’ve come a long way.

And, like that, Katie’s dream of having folks around the table sharing life, encouraging one another, is already coming true.

SONG: COME TO THE TABLE BY THE SIDEWALK PROPHETS.

LYRIC: We all start on the outside. The outside looking in. This is where grace begins...

BRENT: What brought you to the point where you’re sober now for several years?

COOK: I just cried out to God, just help me. I knew it was different. My fight was done.

COOK: But that wasn’t me, that was the Lord. Ray had never did that. That increased my faith, because that wasn’t me.

SONG: COME TO THE TABLE BY THE SIDEWALK PROPHETS.

LYRIC: And He said: ‘Come, to the table. Come join the sinners who have been redeemed…’

BRENT AND KATIE WILLIAMSON: That is awesome. That is awesome, I’m proud for you.

COOK: I’m not egotistical, but I like Ray today.

MCCLENDON: Good, God loves you too—He says you’re awesome.

And then the conversation circles back to wood.

MCCLENDON: God made the wood—all we do is finish it and let the beauty of it come out. You see something that’s been hidden that’s never been seen before and all a sudden it’s there.

LYRIC: ‘Come, to the table. Come join the sinners who have been redeemed. Take your place beside your savior, sit down and be set free…’

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Julie Spencer, in El Dorado, Arkansas.

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