The Best Made Man: Von Wilson
By Matt Beaudin,
Best Made Guide to Colorado,  

My step-father knows how to do everything. What’s more, he knows how to do it all beautifully.

He’s a blacksmith, a chiropractor and a banjo player. He’s a father and a husband, a brother and an uncle. He can row a raft down the Grand Canyon and unicycle the Slickrock trail in Moab, Utah. He can pilot a draft-horse team, shoe a horse and rope a steer. Simply put, he is of the West, through and through. He’s a good man.

Von Wilson is from the ranching community of Craig, Colo. and now lives in Steamboat Springs, the resort community 40 miles up the road. It’s cold in Steamboat — the kind of cold that eats through your breath and your words and lingers in your throat. For years, Von has gotten the wood to burn in the house, keeping all of us cozy in the old Victorian on 7th Street. It’s a good thing, too — my mother hates to be cold, and it’s still unclear why she actually lives in a town that is, decidedly, cold.

But all this brings me to the reason for this posting. Von has fashioned the world’s best chopping block, in his opinion. He’s put an old tire atop a traditional chopping block that, essentially, serves as a backstop; it catches the logs and allows him to keep splitting without bending over 1,000 times an hour, saving him time and, perhaps more importantly, his back.

So here’s to Von and the men like him. The ones who keep houses warm, constantly tweak things to make them more beautiful or more efficient. The ones who teach their sons how to be better men.

13 Notes/ Hide

  1. kentgreen reblogged this from bestmadeco
  2. thanksandgoodluck reblogged this from bestmadeco and added:
    stand-up guy. And reminds...get back out West soon.
  3. bestmadeco posted this