I got into wood carving as a boy scout.  My father was our scout master.  He carved neckerchief slides.  It looked like fun so I became his apprentice.  He also carved a number of wooden balls on a wooden chain.  They always fascinated me but they were more complicated than anything I did.  Years after he passed I found one he started; it had three links on it and it hung from a nail in the basement.  As I held that chunk of wood in my hands – with the three carved links – a voice from my childhood spoke to me and I finished the chain and ball.  That was about 2005 when I refreshed my boyhood carving skills for a brief moment.  Years later I started up again and here’s the result.