Transcript: 00:00 Hello, this is Melissa Hale-Spencer, the editor of the Altamont Enterprise, and we are really excited to have with us today two of the Sherman men. We have Dana Sherman who is kind of a hill town icon and his grandson Kevin, and they are wearing shirts that you will see in a picture in our newspaper, but I'll tell you since you can't see on the podcast it says the Sherman family with crossed axes over a log with a chainsaw in the middle and the reason is at the outcome unfair every year. The Sherman family does an amazing show with wood working would woodsman skills. So welcome both of you and I'd like to just start with a question for Dana about how this tradition started. How did you begin with this?

01:05 This is a. We started at the fair in 1978. No, this was actually at our 40th anniversary at the Ultima. Unfair happy anniversary and the. I mean before that I learned from my father. My father was a, was a mill rate that actually went around in the old days and repaired mills as they. The, the term mill right now is somebody that works in Ge and puts together, um, metal objects and machinery like back in the days they work with wood and hence a mill. Right. And uh, so that's where that name came from, but yeah. Um, and being, being there and being a carpenter and learning the old ways and the, um, I was raised on a farm so we have intimate knowledge of the old barns and like that.

01:52 Yeah. And part of the display every year is you have like hand human being is there as well,

01:57 right. So I forget what year we moved into the 18 nineties building, but that year we started building a barn inside of the building and then every year we add more logs and add to that barn and keep on building the barn inside, inside of a burn it, if you will.

02:17 So, Kevin, when did you. Were you, how old were you when you started getting involved in this family activity?

02:25 Um, I was little. So, um, basically I'm going to go with it before I called her. Remember, I guess are the most straightforward answer. Um, we've got some pictures floating around our shop at the fairgrounds, a of me at three years old starting to throw axes, um, when I was little and being part of the show and stuff.

02:49 Oh Wow. Well, there's a look of startlement crossing my face and I'm for it that there's so much parenting today that wraps kids up and cocoons. I did when I heard throwing axes at three. I quickly looked at Dana. Is this true?

03:08 Actually, there was a picture, the outbound enterprise, it was three years old when he just started the throat to the idea is to get the revolutions to hit the, hit the target. So once, just if you start young and Kevin is a amazing. He's definitely the star of the show when it comes to, uh, to the throwing onto it.

03:31 So since you're the star of this show, and I did a quick online search before doing this interview and I hadn't even known you come out of this long term woodworking family tradition, but apparently axe throwing is a really hot things at urban bars now. Did you know that?

03:47 Yeah. I've been seeing a couple of things on, on, so different social media places. Um, I probably saw the first one. It was some place, I think it was in the Midwest, maybe like probably six, seven months ago. There was, there was one, it was a bar and they had like six or seven, uh, I guess we'll call them ranges, a set up where, uh, people could throw a. and I was, I was actually pretty, pretty surprised when I first saw it. And then, uh, in the, over the last few months I've seen a couple of different places scattered around that, uh, have it set up. Um, I found it kind of struck me as odd to that. That was getting, getting set up, particularly in a bar

04:38 drinking, but it seems to be like it's a say in the stories. I looked at the new hot kind of entertainment. So tell us what, what you do when you throw an ax. Just kind of walk us through from here up to the whole process.

04:55 Well, it's, Dana kind of mentioned it. It's pretty straightforward. It's just, it's basically how many times the, uh, ax is going to spin through the air. So pretty much all I picked the acts up, I woke up, we have a, there's sentences marked out on the floor. Um, any of these bars have it set up. There's a set distance, a throw from A. and basically I go up, I look up

05:22 the target, you know, I can, I kind of like a target for our trees, like got like a bullseye and then ring the same up St Luke's is equity, uh, is if you were looking at a, a classic archery target,

05:33 um, I kind of woke up to the line. Can I look at the target all looked down on my feet real quick and kind of set my feet a look back at the target and then just

05:45 the x goes back over my head and back forward and I let go. And there you go. Do you often make a bullseye? We'll start. We'll start or

05:55 in between my grandfather and myself, my dad, my sister, my cousins will start with a brand new target at the fair and probably probably by about the fourth day, um, where the Bulls I was as a whole, that's probably a good three inches deep

06:17 in the target. So you make it the bull's eye a lot. And a couple of things.

06:24 When you said sister to other [inaudible], the new attraction to the fair this year is that they have women throwing axes in here. It's part of your family already. How did your sister begin with that?

06:34 Uh, pretty much the same way I did. I think she was, she started throwing just a little bit later than me. Um,

06:44 and is she good to you? She's good. She's very good. So there, there's no gender stereotyping and the Sherman family? No, definitely not. No. The thing about the competition is a, any place you go in competition, the ax has got away the same. The distance is always 20 feet. That targeted is always five feet in the air. I'm not talking, I'm not sure what the barroom

07:10 yeah, I've looked at. There's actually a league that sets the rules, the National Acts Federation,

07:15 but we go, we go by the rules and the New York State Lumberjacks Association of the probably are about saying [inaudible]. These weeds were the original rules. It's the same rules you'll see for in any international competition in it's New York state in Boonville or what have you.

07:32 Last few years. It seems like it's just skyrocketed in popularity. It's a website for the national federation. Said there were a 19 point $3 million acts through last year. What do you attribute this soaring popularity to? You guys had been doing it for decades

07:51 and we just. Well, it's actually started back in the days of your, you, you're sitting around logging camp or you are sitting around the woods in boredom and somebody says, well, can you hit that? That log over there, you know, and then so yeah, it was like, it hit it better than you can and that's how it. I mean it got its birth back in the early 18 hundreds, you know? Yeah. So it's been around, I mean, the, the, the tool itself, the actual acts we were throwing down was considerably different than what I started with. I started with an old double bidder. They act, which is really quite heavy. Just explain to our list is a, it would be like, oh, look like a sharp on both sides because it's got a real long blade on each side onto it. And

08:40 eventually instead of having a, your standard ax with the, the flat spot on the back of the head, you're taking, it's got two, two blades on it, one on each side opposite each other. You don't say the double bladed acts. Um, they usually have a quite a bit of way to, um, you know, they're there for chopping him and whatnot. Versus what Dana started to say about the competition actually is there, there are a lot lighter than your standard normal double bay actionable window or modern one. Um, the throwing axes are there are two and a half pounds. Um, and that's the regulation. Wait on him, uh, versus uh, a double. They actually, you would actually be chopping wood with the way kind of varies with the person and what they like. Um, I don't personally like I'll, I'll use one that's a little bit lighter. Mine's probably that I use is probably

09:35 Keshon or for chopping, chopping wood. So a lot of your own. Which Chapel? Just for the, not for competition, just because you're chopping wood.

09:44 Yeah, doing that. Yeah, he went out and like doing the show is or, or um, you know, even like splitting firewood at home or, or whatever. Um, the tree, a double bed actually with Dana will started throwing originally depending on who it was and who actually, you know, who owned the acs. I'm like, I, I tend to favor actors that are a little bit lighter. Um, I'll usually use it access somewhere between like three and four pounds. Whereas some other guys I know my, like my father and my uncle, um, they tend to favor actions that are more in like the six to seven pound range. Um, and it's just a personal personal preference kind of thing versus the competition. Axes are all set. Wait, they're all two and a half pounds and that's the way to the head of the acs.

10:30 What are the questions I was going to ask you too is about what you did to train or work out for this and it sounds like chop might be one of the things or do you do special things to get in shape for these competitions? Are both demonstrations from what

10:46 they to myself. Kevin's. Kevin is a blacksmith. So what you do for a living? Yeah, for a living. I'm a blacksmith specifically. I'm a farrier. I specialize in working on horses. That's kind of a lost art. There's A. There's not too many guys. Rondo, there's. There's not a lot of us, but there's more than you would think, I guess is the best way to.

11:09 I just would like it here a little more about that. Where were the horses? Because it's used to be an essential function. Every village would have one. Back when horses were the tractors and horses were the transportation, but now it's really, I would think kind of rare where you set up. Where do you.

11:27 So. Well Don, just up out. I live on Knox, uh, I basically kind of run like, almost like a home business out of my house and I travel around from farm to farm and work on the horses. Let's

11:41 have a unbelievable travel. Basically everything. Everything goes in my chocolate in there. I go, you don't think of it. I have a daughter that was at the ag school at Cornell and they had a very well known farrier. They're teaching it and he taught it like a lost art, but he was commissioned by the government because they were fighting in Afghanistan and we're having to use horses in the mountains and he did some kind of a horse shoe that really helped with the, I dunno, the traction on those rocks and you just, you don't think about that because you think of horses as being.

12:19 Yeah. These people these days, they tend to be looked at more as a, as a patch. I mean it depends a little bit. You know, what part of the country you're in, but you pick it up.

12:28 I'm sorry. But if you get a little further away from capital district, you'll see there's a rebirth in. I'm actually using draft horses for in the, um, we just went up and judges to show up in by Plattsburgh and where they actually did farm implements. They had the back, the horses in, they had to do a parallel park like you would do for your driving test. He had to back it into a certain doc. They have to step over logs the actually hook a log on behind the horses and they have to drag it through a series of cones without moving the cones. And it's, it's really, it's, it's sort of coming back and it's catching on it. It's not caught on here. I mean, you know,

13:16 but isn't that depressing? Both of these parts of your life are kind of lost arts that you're making. You're making a living at it.

13:23 That's one thing too. I can dead. Dana just kind of mentioned too that I've noticed, especially from doing the farrier work in the last few years, a kind of taken this back towards the woodwork and stuff. There's actually been a big rise in probably the last five years or so, roughly, and I'm kind of guesstimating a little bit. I'm in horses and mules being used for logging, particularly when it comes to land owners that are looking to do selective logging only kind of like thin out the forest a little bit, keep it healthy, um, and whatnot. And the horses heavy, much lower impact then the machinery, like the skinnier skaters and whatnot. So there's actually been a big shift or starting to become a big shift any using horses and mules again for logging.

14:14 Isn't that interesting because it's more environmentally sound for the

14:19 back in the day is when I was, I first learned it that that's what we used. We had a, we had a team of Belgians in the. I was, I started driving him when I was seven years old in getting down into the woodlawn was um, but carriers, it was a road cut into the side of the mountain and so coming up, I mean, it's not something you could feel safe come up in a tractor, but the horse has felt good. And I mean, that was seven years old dragon like to log the time of up this road and it was just as easy as can be.

14:53 Course knew the way and had steady footing as opposed to eight had steady putting Intel is one thing we'd come garage the heart high rise one inside of this. And it was a Canadian links looking down onto us. Then the worst is didn't have to steady putting experience. I think they outran the horses. It's seven years old, my goodness. Well, so Kevin, how did you become a black? Smith were like, how did you learn to do this? Is it like an apprentice system

15:23 are. So there's a couple different ways to go about learning. Um, I would say probably by far most guys learn it. Like they're there, it's a family tradition type deal. I'm not. For me, I grew up with horses, been around them my whole life. Uh, and then probably like eight, nine years ago, I decided I wanted to get out of construction work, uh, and had the bright idea of wanting to go work with horses and what can I do? And, uh, whatnot, and I started doing some researching. You would mention that, uh, uh, was it cornell you said had the, had a farrier program? It looked around. There's actually a, quite a few of them around the country. Uh, and I went to a school down in Kentucky for about a year, learn the trade and then because I grew up in the horse world, um, I just came right back to the area and starting my business. Now there's times two guys go through schools and then the, from the school, they'll go to an apprenticeship. So either that they set up themselves or the school sets up for them. Um, but I, uh, I skipped that part. Um, I said just because I grew up in the horse world. So yeah.

16:44 Fascinating. I was planning on asking you both about, I know a little about Dana's other life because I met you maybe 30 years ago when you were on the town board and at that time you were working at camp cast with youth who were troubled and teaching them woodworking skills. And I'll never forget, I wrote it down. It's something you said to me because later you were working in a maximum security prison doing the same thing and you said you walked through seven doors where no one has a key and then he said I really liked it. And when I asked you why you said you liked working with these troubled youth and teaching them things that they could do with their hands and you describe what you call it, a light bulb moment. They would have given us a little about your work and some people call it the Aha moment or I look for the light bulb. It's when they, when they actually perform a task for the very first time and it pitched together or if it comes out right. And then all

17:50 of a sudden their, it's like their face lights up like a light bulb. And nor was I got it. I got it. I really got an end in the fact that I can do this, you know, and that's something they can take with them. I think it's important to point out that our show, um, we try to tell people that it's a two part shit show. The actual one is definitely uses spectator type of thing and people love to see the actual ad. But the actual hand here when, let's see, educational

18:21 part of it's just going to say you're still an educator during the show. So tell us what it is you teach people that come because people come to the fair, not expecting they're going to be learning about woodworking. And I see them stop because they're enthralled with the ax throwing. I wonder if they ever get frightened. No, no, but then tell us what it is that you're teaching them.

18:43 Well, we start, we start with a live blog live meetings fairly green in. We start down one side and we squared up with Turnitin. Goodbye. He might. When he said his dream,

18:53 he means fresh. Yeah. Fresh Kai. You interrupted there because I just was writing about. I don't know if you know that crowns house which are paper has been trying to save. It's this old house by the first doctor and Altima, built it in practice there, and it was built in the early 18 hundreds and this man by the name of j Cougar White Cloud, who as you might expect, his native American heritage, he was telling me it was all green construction then and he considers that a much more important and much more difficult thing to do. Then he says the dried lumber you get at home depot and he's hoping to do the restoration work there. There's apparently similar to what you were saying with the blacksmithing and using of mules and horses. There's a movement now for carpenters that are considered green carpenters, so thank you for just explaining that. Go ahead

19:51 via once a tooth out in all four side. Then we cut it down to link. We put the, we called it 10 tenure, enjoying the tenured fits into the mortars, which is a slob in. Then we demonstrate the entire construction, how we go through and make the different links and actually show people will make the roof rafters. Kevin does a demonstration with white cedar. He actually makes hand split Cedar shake shingles and that's all part of the demonstration as opposed to the show in. Um, and then we, we ended up with, I always in the show, the same way we say is this, this has been passed down through the Sherman family for many, many, many generations. I would say at least 12 generations. It's become down through according to the Family Bible and it's still passed down and we, we encourage the people that whatever they have in their family that has been passed down, and I always use the phrase, even if it's chocolate chip cookies, pass it on down through the line so that part of your family is always going to be alive there.

21:03 There's, there's certain parts of our society that can't be put on tape or put on video. It's got to be like a live demonstration and this is one of those crafts where you can't just drag a log in into your living room and watch TV. And he would probably be some objections are found and really, really important advice. Thank you. Know it's, it's, it's good, it's all good. But the show, we have people, we have one fell off and look the other side of Middleburg that we see him every year he comes back and he's interested into it and we have people stop and ask because they afterwards, we invite people to uh, to come in and talk to us. Or maybe they've seen a tool that we have hundreds of tools hanging on the wall. My wife will tell you how many tens of thousands of dollars.

22:00 I haven't invested on the wall, but I think she is because she actually covers the checks that I write for the tools. And the other thing we try to do it during the show is we don't try to hurry this because going back to my educational background, if I use a word in this jargon like Morrison, 10 people or the name of a tool like a fro, that people don't understand where the way we just stop this, stop this and hold your hand up or yell or shout or something and say, I don't understand what you said because it's more important that we don't lose somebody doing this. We want to take our time with extra. What is that tool that you just mentioned? The Frau fro? That's a device that we use to split. It looks like a long Kevin Unido better. So, uh, I guess the best way to describe it is a very wide chisel.

23:02 The blade, the blade on it would be best described as a very wide chisel and then at one end of it, the handle comes off straight up at a 90 degree angle. A. So the one that the handle and the blade form an l shape, um, the blade itself, it's probably, Dan would say it's probably about a foot and a half long. Yeah, the blades about a foot and a half long. And basically use the same. Same as you would a chisel. You would set it on the. I sat on the stock that I'm working on a and just drive it down through the log and split off a piece. Um,

23:47 basically you could think of it as I'm, I'm splitting out a board. A,

23:54 he can split it.

23:56 Teacher, good descriptive you, you all do this. Your family is a labor of love, right? You're not getting paid by the fair for. Oh, we get, we get a demo for the demonstration. We get paid for a lot more than we've been going there for what this is. We've been three weeks in the process. Yeah.

24:13 Oh yes. Setting night, getting everything set up. We started about three weeks ago. Yeah.

24:18 And that's not counting when we're down there a 10 hours a day, you know, it takes a lot, a lot of pr. It takes an awful lot of prep. You just can't come in and open the back of the pickup truck up and do it. No matter. We do show is all over the country and it's like, I mean sometimes you wind up doing, you get paid a spaghetti dinner or something, you know, I've gotten to that too, just to come in and do it.

24:40 What is it that has motivated you all these years? What is it that

24:45 I think personally, I guess I got to say family, like my granddaughter's been throwing cheese now. I shouldn't probably tell her age, but she's 25. Uh, yeah. That sounds right. Twenty five. So she's been throwing for a good 10 years with us and the end we have our new granddaughter has just started her first year. She started throwing about two days ago. And uh, and how old is she? A kaylee is seven. She just turned 17, so a sh. She's hitting the target and we hope by, uh, by the middle of the fear should be doing good in the. Yes. Good because uh, ladies in the audience and the young girls in the audience really liked to see the girls compete. And, and you mentioned before less about the, that's not a sexist type of thing. No matter where you go to competition, you use the same acts, you use the same saw in all competition. It doesn't change at all was man, woman or beast. Generally it's all the same.

25:51 That's great. I'm just too, I, I, it seems like your family is very generous because I know you're both very active in the volunteer fire company and that too is. I understand it is a family tradition. I know I wrote that long ago when you were honored with an award, you had been in 50 years and now you're the assistant chief and the Knox

26:13 chief and knocks a want to say, I think this is my third years, the assistant chief, I think.

26:20 Yeah. So just tell us what motivates you to do that. I mean, again, that's another labor of love. That's a

26:28 boy. I tell you, you know, what is, what, what makes you a volunteer for him? And you got to be a little crazy. But I guess community, you know, I mean, uh, once, once you're a, when does she have done something really good at a, at a car accident, a motor vehicle accident, or once you've really made a good save on a house, you're pretty well hooked. It's a sense of helping other people. You, you've accomplished something, you've saved parlor house, you know, hours and hours and hours of training and Oh, it's horrible. But Kevin, how many hours now? I think the initial training now, the, the firefighter one course, I believe now it's something like 127 hours I think is what it is and that's just the one initial course. The very first one.

27:32 Well my hat's off. If I had one of my favorite Kurt vonnegut quotes is about how in someone's house is burning the most important person in town. If he's on the volunteer fire department will show up at the house of the poorest person in town and it's the idea that it's this caring about everybody. It's a great equalizer. It's system.

27:55 It's a social aspect to it too. I mean there's a telling them that actually there's not a lot to do. There was no social clubs up there at all. There was a few bars in town, but you know, but we have, we have a community room where we enjoy ourselves and in the but we still have to train. We meet one day, one day a month, we train two days a month and we work on trucks usually one day. Well yeah, and then when we do have a fifth Monday, every now and then we went to work at and half of that and then just enjoying ourselves the other half, but half Damon joined it just, I don't know, it's like I say, if you asked somebody why they're a volunteer fireman, it's going to stutter and stammer and

28:46 I've taken his modesty but I think you. And do you have any closing thoughts? Our time with very fast and sometimes I miss the most important thing if you want to let

28:56 people know who you know, if you, if it come to the fear and the and just stopped in to see us and they ask us questions and like that.

29:04 And you are right inside the opening door. At least the way I come in of the village and Carriage Museum Museum,

29:10 just so people know where to find you. Right off the gate. Five, we are engaged. Five, we're taking a hard right and we're right there in the. It's stopping and she the entire show and uh, stay afterwards. Sometimes afterwards we do get the two main cross cut saw out. And uh, what we'd like to do is, this is a salve, it's like how like eight feet long or something like that, about six, seven feet long depending which one we get. Yeah. We happen to have two of them. And what we do is we have, we picked two people in the audience and they compete together on one end of a squared up log in to professionals on the other end. So you guys are on the other end. Yeah. Well I get to decide when the professionals start. Oh, I do that by reaching over and grabbing a hold on their side.

30:02 I sit in the log and of course the audience is always rooting for the thing and they get a father and son of husband and wife sometimes can be hard because you can't push the saw some visit coordination truth in Filipino. The audience always wins and they get to take home that black of wood people value that block of wood. We had a young kid come back with a block of wood that he had. They sought up the year before and he says, I brought this bat and I still got the. Oh, that's great. Well, thank you so much. Thank you.