Serendipity,

or, a fortunate discovery made accidentally.

We recently inherited a grandmother's clock, literally from my husband's grandmother, by way of his mother. It had to be shipped from Albany, New York and took quite a long time to arrive. It needed a specially built box and all sorts of careful packing. The original finial had disappeared years ago, but it had a replacement and that was broken, not in shipping; we don't know when or where.

I set out on Saturday to find a replacement finial, thinking that I could just go to Woodcraft, a specialty woodworking shop I knew of, where I would find a variety of finials to choose from.

When I arrived, there was a packed parking lot....odd...and a crowd of people in the store. I found a salesperson, told him what I was looking for, and was told that such a thing is not sold. It has to be made. But then he pointed to a man at the front of the store and told me that he was demonstrating woodturning and that I should ask him to make one for me. Really?

I went up front and asked if he could make a new finial; he said he would be happy to. He started with a block of wood, perhaps 2" x 2" x 8" long. He put it on what I now know is a lathe, and started work. The lathe spins the wood very, very fast, and the woodturner uses various tools to take away whatever is not a finial.

As I stood there, with a CROWD, watching, the man standing next to me asked, "Do you know who that is?"

I saw that his jacket said "Nick Cook" but that was all I knew. When I said that I didn't, several people standing near told me that Nick Cook is a master woodturner, and that he teaches and demonstrates all around the world. He is FAMOUS, folks!!! And he was making me a new finial!!! Holy Cow! For the knitters who are reading, this would be like walking into a yarn shop with a problem and having some nice woman say, "I'll do it," and finding out that the woman is Elizabeth Zimmerman.

The skill that turning a finial requires is amazing - all the lathe does is spin the wood. Mr. Cook had to know which tools to use and when to use them, and had to have the most exquisite sense of touch and pressure in order to shave the wood precisely in the right places to get the shape he wanted. The little ball on the end of the finial was his idea; he said that the original finial had probably had one. How he could make that small detail without having it come off in the process is a mystery to me - but not to him.

So now I have a perfect finial, made by a true master woodturner!

Thank you, Mr. Cook!!! I am honored.