Hey, Norm Made a Sailboat!

Norm Abram is retired from both his TV shows now, I think. I haven’t had a lot to do with television for a long time now, so correct me if I’m wrong. He was different than every other TV person who made stuff. He banged on houses with Bob Vila and all his replacements on This Old House, and he made sensible furniture on The New Yankee Workshop on the side. I certainly never saw all of his output, but I never saw him say something stupid. No one would ever say that about me, even if they only met me yesterday. He was always avuncular and productive and sensible on his shows. He never built anything ridiculous that I saw.

The internet is now chock-a-block full of people building stupid stuff, stupidly. This Old House has devolved into nothing more than dreadful homeowners picking out the most expensive things from every list put in front of them, and has long been unwatchable. It wasn’t always thus. The crew used to help homeowners repair and remodel their own houses in a robust but sane fashion. The sweat equity was real, and the results were sensible, if not flashy. The sensible but not flashy ethos is as dead as a Pharaoh now. It’s been decades since I’ve heard of any dwelling of any kind on television construction shows referred to as anything other than a “dream home.” No one is willing to settle for  a regular home they might be able to afford, or even build themselves. They’ll live in a shipping container, but not a ranch.

Building a boat in the basement was a pretty common thing back in the day. I did it myself, once, though I never launched it. I got to wondering if it was still “a thing.” A quick scan of YouTub seined a huge trawl of ridiculous boat projects. Dream boats, if you will. All the smaller stuff was people wondering if they could make a silly boat out of the wrong materials.

And then Norm appeared. Look what he made. It’s a modest, useful, intelligent thing, made to last. Just like Norm.