Big Meaning

     I had a lot of fun working with the guys at Alabama Damascus. They may not realize it, but its rare to find a group of people so in love with their work and what they do. This is the aspect that defines the American dream, builds good businesses, and creates success, which is more than just how much you make in your paycheck.                                                                (That's me on the far right)

     This links to the Youtube documentary I made for Alabama Damascus, for more in depth information on the Knife makers , and if you just want to see more of the shop.

     For over 20 years Alabama Damascus has crafted some of the world’s finest and toughest knife and steel blanks in the world. Today, Alabama Damascus remains the top commercial producer of Damascus layered steel in the United States, and competes globally with other such producers like Pakistan, China, and India, but those who know true knives, know Alabama Damascus steel to be some of the best.      Even Hitler, in WWII, fell in love with the beauty and potential of Damascus steel, and had five blacksmiths that could only make enough for his top generals. The first record of folded steel comes from 200 AD, where laminated metal combined the properties of multiple metals, into a pattern that resembled a cloth, for which the city was named. Fast forward a few thousand years, opened in the 1970s, in an old cotton mill, Edwards steel became the first and only commercial level producer of Damascus steel in the world. Edwards steel bec...

     In the First Entry into my project, I will take you to the small town of Jacksonville, Alabama. Home to my alma mater, and a little known gem nestled in the Choccolocco mountains of northeast Alabama. In a place that once held the title of being the top producer of Damascus steel knives in the world, I will be taking you under the hammer to see how these ancient marvels are made today in the most spectacular way possible. Along the way we'll will get to meet the men and woman who live and breath craftsmanship, and steel understanding as they combine ancient techniques, with modern equipment to produce some of the highest quality knives in the world.

     So I have begun a new project, I am calling "American Craftsman" where I will be exploring America's blue collar work force and bringing to light many jobs most people have never thought about. I will be telling the story of the men and women of America who craft, build, and create for their living, and overall will tell the story of the backbone of America: the small business. Many of the Following stories will be from this project and will be labeled as "American Craftsman" with their own individual story title along side that. Of the occupations I will be exploring you will find surfboards, damascus knives, bourbon and much more! Stay tuned over the next year or so for more stories and adventures!

     So I never wrote a final article for our summer trip, mostly because of all the excitement of getting home, and preparing for a new semester of college. However, another part of it has really been that I just didn’t know what to say. There was so much that happened, in so short a time, that I’m still processing the experiences. I think that the biggest thing I have gotten from all of this is a real purpose of what I want to do with my life. All the photographs I have taken, all the people I have met, and all the wonders I have seen are pushing me to a greater mission. That generic question every kid is asked when they get to college; Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? To capture these things, to write about the stuff out of the reach of most people, to capture the images and to tell the stories of the human experience, that’s what I want to do with my life.      I got the chance to meet my great uncle, though I didn’t get e...

     So on our way up to Oregon, we stopped to meet our great aunt; Aunt Mary Ruth. I never even realized that my grandfather had a sister. She lives on about 20 acres of pecan orchard, which she manages and owns. She also swims every morning and is in wonderful shape, especially for someone who is 87! We spent the day picking up and shelling pecans, and we will be on our way to uncle Deans tomorrow, the uncle I’ve never met... that I can remember...

     The celebration of my grandfather’s life went very well. Grandpa Dowd was a coach, and many of his former players were there, along with one of his partner coaches. Something that was strange to me was the amount of people whom he effected, who were not only his family, but his neighbors and even those he coached. There were people who stood to talk whom he had barely touched, yet to whom he had left a lasting impact on, enough in some cases, to drive across the country, to see him pass. Often the stories were nothing special, but it was the consensus that he was not only a man of large stature, standing at 6’3’’, but of a massive heart. In the smallest things, he touched people’s hearts, and those moments were the ones people recalled more readily. He was in the navy for 4 years, and was a boxer. He won middle weight champion at Farragut Naval training station. He was a pharmacist’s mate, and was stationed in Guam during World War 2. At the celebration, my fath...