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Speaker 1: This season, we're bringing you stories about people finding their
Speaker 1: professional stride by virtue of who they know, whether it's
Speaker 1: breathing new life into an age old profession, taking the
Speaker 1: reins in a family business, forging your own path with
Speaker 1: a new idea, or landing the perfect job doing something
Speaker 1: you'd never before even considered. Today reporter Otis Gray brings
Speaker 1: us a story about a craft that is no longer
Speaker 1: as needed as it once was, and a man whose
Speaker 1: job is to make sure it's not forgotten. Jim Ellis
Speaker 1: lives on Cape Cod, and with the help of a
Speaker 1: very unlikely apprentice, he works to pass along an occupation
Speaker 1: that was once woven into the fabric of our society
Speaker 1: over to you, Otis. I don't know, just that I
Speaker 1: think we're in too much of a hearty these days.
Speaker 1: Everything's too simple. God, they gotta remember how the old
Speaker 1: time has got us to this point. It wasn't for them,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't be here. So I drove out to Barnstable, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: on Cape Cod to meet a guy named Jim Ellis.
Speaker 1: He lives in this old, historic looking house. There's a
Speaker 1: plaque outside that says House of Ellis right on the porch,
Speaker 1: which is a family name here dating all the way
Speaker 1: back to the Mayflower. And when I walked into Jim's kitchen,
Speaker 1: he was sitting next to a pair of crutches and
Speaker 1: he was in a lot of pain. It's just shop
Speaker 1: it banks. TC eyes have had both rotator cuffs repaid
Speaker 1: over the years, and I think I tore another one
Speaker 1: for a second time. But if I haven't looked at tomorrow,
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll see what happens in his line
Speaker 1: of work. A torn rotator cuff makes things difficult and
Speaker 1: really really hard, but you can laugh about it. Hey,
Speaker 1: what else you gonna do? You see the laugh? Or
Speaker 1: drink beer? That's cheaper than laugh. Not an ideal injury.
Speaker 1: Because Jim Ellis is a blacksmith. Is the rotator cuff
Speaker 1: a result of your work black smithing? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think a g e has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with it. You just heard eighty one that week, and
Speaker 1: in a world of fast moving, high tech jobs, some
Speaker 1: that didn't even exist thirty years ago. Jim is a
Speaker 1: third generation blacksmith. It picked it up from my father,
Speaker 1: and he got it from my uncle, and my uncle
Speaker 1: got it from Mr Kent, who started hearing a village
Speaker 1: in about eighteen eighty eight. I think in that area,
Speaker 1: and even at eighty one, Jim still swinging a hammer
Speaker 1: any day that he can still at it hundred eleven
Speaker 1: years in the same village, doing the same job, in
Speaker 1: the same family. I just I love it. I love
Speaker 1: the old history. I'd try to keep it going. So today,
Speaker 1: with Jim shoulder on the mend, we follow his story
Speaker 1: as he strives to pass along the craft from another time.
Speaker 1: Under a spreading chutnut tree, the fellows smithy stands the Smith.
Speaker 1: A mighty man is he, with large and sinewy heads,
Speaker 1: and the muscles on his brawny arms are as strong
Speaker 1: as iron bands. His hair is crisp and black and long.
Speaker 1: His face is like the tan. His brow is wet
Speaker 1: with honest sweat. He earns whatever he can, and he
Speaker 1: can look the whole world in the face, for he
Speaker 1: owes not any man. That's Jim reciting the Village Blacksmith,
Speaker 1: a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in eighteen forty.
Speaker 1: Jim has this poem hanging on the wall in his shop.
Speaker 1: This is where I first met Jim. I was driving
Speaker 1: around the cape when I saw a brick building on
Speaker 1: the side of the road with a sign outside that
Speaker 1: said Blacksmith, right in the driveway. I pulled over and
Speaker 1: I walked in to find Jim amongst the sea of
Speaker 1: iron tools and hooks and chandeliers, iron everything hanging from
Speaker 1: the walls ceiling, poking out our shelves and buckets, and
Speaker 1: talked against the back wall was Jim sitting out a forge,
Speaker 1: a glowing furnace powered by a hand crank where he
Speaker 1: heats his iron up until it glows red so he
Speaker 1: can bend it and hammer into whatever shape he wants.
Speaker 1: Like walking through kind of a day. What your tasks are,
Speaker 1: what you do in the shop, everything, Well, that's kind
Speaker 1: of a what I like about it. You never know
Speaker 1: what's gonna do. I mean, people bring things into bvpaid
Speaker 1: from weather veins to any kind of antique stands and
Speaker 1: and I've even got an antique picture frames and stuff
Speaker 1: and says some stuff very intricate, like little wall hooks
Speaker 1: and plant hangers. And the other day I had to
Speaker 1: make a U shaped piece of iron to hold the
Speaker 1: sign of a guy wanted. And now it's just bang bang,
Speaker 1: bend it and put a hook on it, and you're
Speaker 1: all done, just bending, heating up metal and bending it,
Speaker 1: shaping it. What a lot of us think about blacksmithing,
Speaker 1: We picture a burly guy at an anvil pounding away
Speaker 1: on a hot piece of metal. You might be pick
Speaker 1: shuring a sword or medieval times, and that's part of it.
Speaker 1: Shaping a square piece of iron into something usable, like
Speaker 1: a blade or a hook to hang things. But what
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't realize is this is how
Speaker 1: things were originally welded, right up until the nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Welding as in taking two pieces of metal, getting them
Speaker 1: hot enough so that they melt, and joining them together
Speaker 1: the heart. It is easier just to move a good
Speaker 1: welding heat is twenty dred degrees fahrenheit. When the iron
Speaker 1: goes past that cherry red color to a bright light yellow,
Speaker 1: the iron melts and literally begins to move. With electric
Speaker 1: and gas welders we have today, that kind of heat
Speaker 1: comes pretty easy. How years ago they used to have
Speaker 1: to bring it up to that heat. That's how they
Speaker 1: did the welding. They didn't have electricity, they didn't have
Speaker 1: wealth and gases. The welded in the fire, So you
Speaker 1: gotta get the i nd right to that melting point
Speaker 1: and then hammer it together. By its nature, all of
Speaker 1: Jim's work looks old fashioned. The way things used to
Speaker 1: be made is not perfect and smooth like most metal
Speaker 1: objects we see today. Most of the things around his
Speaker 1: shop have a rougher quality to it, and that's the
Speaker 1: way he likes it. A lot of people don't like
Speaker 1: to leave Hamma Max. I love Hamma Box. Matter of fact,
Speaker 1: sometimes I use this special hammer to make different marks
Speaker 1: in it. Why do you love the hammer market? It
Speaker 1: just shows that it's a handhammered, not gunning a machine. Character.
Speaker 1: Blacksmithing is a job that's part of our cultural lexicon.
Speaker 1: Everyone knows what the job is, even though most people
Speaker 1: today don't know a blacksmith. Even in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: long after blacksmithing had faded from it's heyday, it's still
Speaker 1: topped the charts in the song blacksmith Blues by lam
Speaker 1: A Morse in ninety two. That's because blacksmiths are a
Speaker 1: huge part of our human story. The blacksmith was pivotal
Speaker 1: in every village, town, and city dating back almost a
Speaker 1: thousand years ago when humans began successfully making iron tools,
Speaker 1: They fixed armor and made weapons, making the vital to conquest.
Speaker 1: They made farming equipment, axles for wagons. They were quite
Speaker 1: literally what held society together. Blacksmithing remained a completely necessary
Speaker 1: job right up until the Industrial Revolution, but with the
Speaker 1: invention of bigger machines affordable tractors for Farmers and Fords
Speaker 1: model T car to replace the horse and buggy. Blacksmiths
Speaker 1: quickly found their profession obsolete at the turn of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Afterwards, blacksmiths specialized in craft goods, but much
Speaker 1: of the profession died away during the depression in the
Speaker 1: years following. The craft itself made a huge resurgence during
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies as folks became interested in its history
Speaker 1: and its application to modern sculpture and crafts, but not
Speaker 1: many people do it as a full time job like
Speaker 1: the old days. Jim is not an exception. Well, I
Speaker 1: try to make enough to keep the shop going, but
Speaker 1: now it's it's pretty hard to make a living at
Speaker 1: it the way I'm doing it, But being retired, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't have to plan on it for my
Speaker 1: my income, but I do have to break even at
Speaker 1: least In another life, Jim worked on nuclear weapons in
Speaker 1: the military, and it was a mechanic until he broke
Speaker 1: his back in a truck accident in the seventies. Now
Speaker 1: that he's technically retired, he runs a shop more like
Speaker 1: a museum than anything. Although I always had the fire going,
Speaker 1: I always had a piece of identified people like to
Speaker 1: see the uh, you know, the medal being forged, and
Speaker 1: especially kids like to see it putting the water and
Speaker 1: sizzle and all that. But yeah, we're just just trying
Speaker 1: to keep the interested in blacksmithing. How many more years
Speaker 1: do you think you're hav any for blacksmithing? Ah, well,
Speaker 1: I'll keep that as long as I can. So now
Speaker 1: we're back where we started. The gym shoulders. He can
Speaker 1: sometimes do two hours a day before he's cashed out.
Speaker 1: But if you ask Jim if he's worried that all
Speaker 1: his knowledge of tools and blacksmithings stop with hum, he'll
Speaker 1: tell you not at all. Why because he's got a
Speaker 1: pretty unlikely protege to carry on the tradition. I guess,
Speaker 1: so yeah. Yeah. My name is Nora Bourbon and I
Speaker 1: full time I'm a metal engraver and part time black smith.
Speaker 1: I say unlikely because Nora is five, too skinny and
Speaker 1: prefers to forge an address. Not the classic image you
Speaker 1: have in your head when you think of a blacksmith. Nope, nope,
Speaker 1: I'm very petite, little little lady. Usually it's the big,
Speaker 1: burly dude. Do you think other people find it weird
Speaker 1: that you do something like blacksmith. I think it surprises
Speaker 1: a lot of people, considering more of my height and
Speaker 1: just how scrawny I look. But I think, um, people
Speaker 1: really respect it and they think it's very interesting what
Speaker 1: I do. Nora has been learning from for about three
Speaker 1: years now, and she enjoys not fitting into the stereotypical
Speaker 1: image of a blacksmith, being able to prove maybe two
Speaker 1: young kids like it is really nice to show that
Speaker 1: as an inspiration to younger people or smaller people, that um,
Speaker 1: anyone can do this trade. Even though you can swing
Speaker 1: an eight pounds sledgehammer. You don't have to be a
Speaker 1: big person that goes to Jim all the time or
Speaker 1: something like that. This in particular shows that you really
Speaker 1: anyone can do anything that they put their mind to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's she's doing wonderful. She loves it. I was gonna
Speaker 1: smile on her face. I've learned so much from Jim
Speaker 1: over the last just couple of years, and I've slowly
Speaker 1: done a little bit on my own here and there
Speaker 1: throughout this time, this whole time. But I like the
Speaker 1: old process. I like the simple ways, and um, I
Speaker 1: even make soap from scratch and I grow vegetables and
Speaker 1: I grow things in the garden. You're pretty old fashioned.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, ver. We'll get back to the story in
Speaker 1: a second. First, a word from Express Employment Professionals. A
Speaker 1: strong work ethic, takes pride in a job well done,
Speaker 1: sweats over the details. This is you. But to get
Speaker 1: an honest day's work, you need a response, you need
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Speaker 1: can help because we understand what it takes to get
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Speaker 1: back to our story. I I love her Renaissance spirit.
Speaker 1: Let's just let's do things the old Wait, yes, it's uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, It's just that I think we're in
Speaker 1: too much of a hurry these days. Everything's too simple.
Speaker 1: You're gonna slow it out, do it right, do it once,
Speaker 1: it'll last. I gotta remember how the old time has
Speaker 1: got us to this point. It wasn't for them, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be here toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing away through life. He
Speaker 1: goes each morning somewhere began, Each evening sees it close.
Speaker 1: Something attempted, something done, has earned him a night's repose.
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks to thee my worthy friend, for the lessons
Speaker 1: thou hast taught. Thou set the flaming forge of life.
Speaker 1: Our fortunes must be rocked thus on a sounding ample
Speaker 1: shaped each burning beat and thought. Being in gym shop,
Speaker 1: I couldn't help thinking about something I picked up as
Speaker 1: a job when I was in college, sign painting. I
Speaker 1: learned typography and painted signs by hand for businesses around Providence,
Speaker 1: Rhode Island, where I went to school. It was a
Speaker 1: really tough thing to be even okay at. Like blacksmithing,
Speaker 1: sign painting used to be a very necessary job in
Speaker 1: society before computers and vinyl printing. Sign pages would design storefronts,
Speaker 1: scale the sides of buildings and paint mammoth, advertisements and logos.
Speaker 1: It was messy, tedious, hard work, and today it might
Speaker 1: seem like a creative passion, but years back it was
Speaker 1: a real, vital job that would feed families. It taught
Speaker 1: me patience, something I was born lacking a little bit.
Speaker 1: And as I felt the brush slowly glide over glass
Speaker 1: or wood, knowing all the practice I had done before
Speaker 1: led up to this one mark I had to do
Speaker 1: in one stroke, there was a sense of satisfaction and
Speaker 1: confidence that I didn't know before. It is that feeling
Speaker 1: you get when you've done something right and you know
Speaker 1: you didn't take any shortcuts. Today you can drive around
Speaker 1: and see the remnants of old sign work, faded letters
Speaker 1: wearing away on the size of brick buildings like ghosts,
Speaker 1: evidence of something from long ago. And the more I painted,
Speaker 1: the more I appreciated those disappearing letters, something undeniably human,
Speaker 1: like a fingerprint, a record of how far we've come
Speaker 1: hammer marks. If learning an old job like that did
Speaker 1: anything for me, it was that it helped me appreciate time.
Speaker 1: For thirty five year old Nora and blacksmith thing, it's
Speaker 1: the same I feel that I need to hold onto
Speaker 1: as much knowledge as I can so that it can't
Speaker 1: it can stay stick around and doesn't escape. I know,
Speaker 1: I realized how hard the old type has worked. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm listening to my mother, how she grew
Speaker 1: up on a farm and the things they had to
Speaker 1: do before she went to school, walked to school and
Speaker 1: riding horses, and they worked really, really hard. How hard
Speaker 1: it was to put an eye entire on a wagon wheel,
Speaker 1: how it was to make a wagon wheel, all these things.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know. You know, if you know that,
Speaker 1: I think it helps you get along in today's world,
Speaker 1: knowing what other people went through so you can be
Speaker 1: where you are. They helped you get there. Jim Ellis's
Speaker 1: skills and knowledge are part of our collective DNA as humans,
Speaker 1: and he plays a vital role in making sure that
Speaker 1: we don't forget Jim as a craftsman. That's the job
Speaker 1: he's passing on to Nora. But more than that, to me,
Speaker 1: I think they're both in the business of gratitude, of
Speaker 1: passing along and appreciation. What do you think the future
Speaker 1: of blacksmith thing looks like. I think it's it's comed
Speaker 1: al for a long time. Yet there's a lot of
Speaker 1: young people really into it. And uh so, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's compr alf A while I can't see it
Speaker 1: Gornaway surely. Yeah, we'll keep keep it alive for On
Speaker 1: the Job, I motus Gray, thanks for listening and see
Speaker 1: you next time. M thanks for listening to On the Job,
Speaker 1: brought to you by Express Employment Professionals. Find out more
Speaker 1: at Express pros dot com. This season of On the
Speaker 1: Job is produced by Audiation and dread Seat Ventures. Our
Speaker 1: executive producer is Sandy Smallens. Our producer is Otis Gray.
Speaker 1: The show is mixed by Matt Noble at The Loft
Speaker 1: in Bronxville, New York. Find us on I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and Apple Podcasts. If you liked what you heard, please
Speaker 1: consider rating or reviewing the show on Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen. We'll see you next time. For more
Speaker 1: inspiring stories about discovering your life's work, Ariation