Working wonders with wood
<p>Maynard Lyson, 81, browses one of his work benches Tuesday at his son's shop in Hayden where he stores tools for his woodworking hobby. Lyson, who began woodworking about 14 years ago, took up the hobby after trying his hand at the craft with his brother who is also a woodworker.</p>
<p>Over the years, Maynard Lyson has crafted a number of items in his woodworking shop. Although he never tries to sell them, many become gifts or items he makes upon request.</p>
The sleepy Hayden property was draped in silence, until a sound pierced the air. A screeching saw, muffled as it emanated from the wood shop out back.
In the shadowed interior, a small light outlined two figures amongst a spread of tools.
The one maneuvering a saw was younger, confident. The other was leaner, more stooped, unhurried as he gently plucked up tools.
Soft, white hair swept out of his eyes, Maynard Lyson caressed a paint brush against a wood panel, his stiff fingers cradling the brush carefully.
It was like he was waiting for the question - what was he working on? - which caused his face to light up, the smile lines carved around his eyes widening into warm enthusiasm.
"I'm working on this dragon," he replied, pointing to the side, where tiny wood pieces were shaped into the infinitesimal curves of a Chinese dragon. "The fun part is what I get to do there."
As in, fitting the pieces into a complicated arrangement, sanding a frame, painting the background and then hanging the end product. ... Somewhere. Anywhere.
By then, Maynard will be on to the next project.
"It's just my hobby," the retired contractor explained as he took a break in the work shop last week. "I love it."
The routine has gone on for several years. Fifteen, to be the best of Maynard's recollection.
Six days a week, Maynard, 82 next month, rolls his car from his Coeur d'Alene home to his son Dan's house in Hayden. The pair shares a cup of joe, chats about the latest headlines, then moseys out back to the work shop.
On chilled mornings like Tuesday, they toss a log into the furnace and get to it. Dan goes about work for the concrete and excavation company he took over from his father, while Maynard fashions wood art pieces.
"I always kid him, his shop is taking over my shop," Dan said with a smile.
An assortment of his father's creations are lined on furniture set to the side. Carved into picture-sized slabs of oak, walnut, birch are tremendous scenes - a stagecoach with tiny spokes pulled by horses in mid-gallop; a multi-paneled nativity scene; a three-dimensional buffalo exploding with intricate tufts of hair; a portrait of Jesus, with eyes encircled by weary, thoughtful lines.
"All this around the eyes? It's all pretty tedious stuff," Maynard said, adding that such details can take a full day's worth of work.
But there's not much else he's up to these days.
Maynard's body has been letting him down a little at a time. Beyond pancreatic cancer and diabetes, arthritis has been an insidious assailant, requiring surgeries on both knees and hips.
"All the surgeries I've had, I don't even think I could count 'em all," Maynard said with a low chuckle.
The arthritis has spread to his wrists and hands, now almost as stiff as the wood boards he wields.
But none of that precludes him from woodworking, which doesn't ask much of him physically.
The native of Montana farmland simply pulls up his stool to the scroll saw and slowly, deftly rotates wood pieces as the thin blade hammers away, not unlike moving cloth under a sewing needle.
Some of his projects take days, weeks.
Maynard works a few hours every morning, pop music crackling over the radio as he and Dan labor side by side. Then Maynard heads back home, the rest of his day committed to caring for his girlfriend who has suffered a stroke.
"The morning is my time," Maynard said.
The work is evidence that he can still create, like throughout his career building houses and curbs. Like when he fashioned a cedar chest for his high school girlfriend he was married to for 37 years before she passed away.
The projects allow him to carry on with hard work and focus, addictive after a life of work.
"I just enjoy getting to see what I've done and how nice it looks," Maynard said. "They make me feel good after I make them."
Dan said he is amazed his father makes it in every morning. Excluding Sundays, that is, ever reserved for church.
"He probably shouldn't even be out here every day, but he always makes it," Dan said. "It gives him something to live for and do. It helps him be motivated. A lot of people when they retire, they stay on the couch until they pass away."
The projects are usually gifts for Maynard's five children, Maynard said. Also for his several grandchildren, and the brood of great-grandchildren he admits he's lost count of.
Cher Rhoads, aerie secretary for the Coeur d'Alene Eagles Club, said Maynard often brings in his products for a little showing off to other members.
"I think it's really well done, and that he spends a lot of time and effort," she said. "Blood, sweat and tears he puts into them."
The crowd loves poring over the pieces, Rhoads added.
"Some people ask for specific things they want made, and he can usually accommodate them all," she said.
Maynard's window of work time was waning on Tuesday morning at 10:30.
But he would return faithfully the next day, he said. And the next.
"I'll do it up until I can't work any more," he said. "I hope to do it until I can't."