In a game of Quien es muy macho? I'm pretty sure I'd lose out to both Michael Berube and PZ Myers.
Michael plays hockey, after all, and PZ lives in Minnesota. Three year old children who live in Minnesota are more macho than me. They're more macho than anybody except for three year old children who live in North Dakota.
You live through a winter up there and you've earned the right to spit in the eye of a Navy SEAL.
So even though both of them had to face the limits of their manly man-ness recently, I am not going to cast aspersions on their masculinity, especially since the challenge to their manhoods came in the form of a chain saw.
Both men had giant tree limbs drop into their yards. Both men have wives who thought the thing to do about those fallen limbs was to urge their husbands to cut them up into manageable kindling with chain saws. Both men balked.
Michael tells his sorry tale here. PZ recounts his downfall here.
Some of you might remember that I faced a similar dilemma this past spring. The tree limb in question didn't fall, it just split, which meant that to deal with it I would have had to get up on a ladder with a chain saw, so I think that the task facing me was far more dangerous and difficult and my deciding almost immediately to call in the specialists was less of a surrender, but still...
I'm not going to shake my head and tsk tsk over their failures of nerve.
I am a little disappointed in Michael for allowing himself to be shamed by his wife into actually going out and renting a chain saw he knew in his heart of hearts he would never even pull the starter cord on.
But I really am not in a position to throw stones. I am fortunately married to a woman who is positively hostile to my ability to use power tools. Every birthday and Father's Day and Christmas when she asks me what I'd like Santa to bring me, I name a new tool of some kind and invariably I look into my stocking to find a new shirt or pair of pants or a book or something equally practical and safe.
One year she relented and bought me a circular saw for Father's Day. But she was appalled when I took the monster out of its case and actually used it. And I'm pretty sure she consulted a divorce lawyer on the sly when she found out I taught both boys how to use it.
To this day she has never acknowledged to my face that the flooring on the back deck at our old house didn't replace itself.
If I had gone out and rented a chain saw and cut down that limb, sawn it up into lumber, and used it to build a bookshelf, she'd be telling people that the most amazing thing happened---the wind ripped away the branch in the night and blew it all the way to the town compost heap.
The bookshelf would be as good as invisible.
The blonde is the daughter of a man who still can't find the on button on the DVD player two years after we gave it to him for Christmas.
Berube's wife comes from a family of men who, if the Martians attacked and laid waste to all of civilization, would have all the machines up and running the next day, after having built everyone a new house with a two car garage.
So I guess I should understand why Michael let himself be intimidated. My decision to commit or not commit suicide by chain saw was entirely my own.
Myers' wife appears to have accepted his decision not to risk self-amputation without either shame or indifference.
At any rate, when it comes to chain saws, all three of us must hold our manhoods as cheap as those who stood a-bed on St Crispin's Day.
I've got no business making fun of them. They've got no business making fun of me.
Neddie Jingo, though, can laugh at the three of us.
Neddie Jingo can use a chain saw. Neddie Jingo is not afraid of any chain saws. Neddie Jingo loves his chain saw, as he told me in a comment on the post in which I admitted to my chain saw phobias.
Lance: The chain saw ROCKS. Be not afraid of the chain saw. Fear not the chain saw. I once was, like you, afraid of the chain saw. I am no longer so afflicted. The chain saw rocks.
I use the chain saw to mow the lawn. I use the chain saw to carve turkey. Yea, I use it to shave. For the chain saw ROCKS.
Fear it not.
Quien es my macho?
Neddie Jingo es muy macho!
I demand a tally of Neddie Jingo's appendages!
Posted by: PZ Myers | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 09:57 AM
Uh, the day the chain saw wins, will there be pics?? (yes, I'm warped)
Posted by: Angie | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 10:36 AM
Chain saws aren't that hard to use, Lance. I used one to help my Pop clear out three acres of cedar trees in Central Texas. Once you've used one, it's easy.
Posted by: SAP | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 10:37 AM
A chain saw is a tool. A potentially dangerous one; messy, loud and dirty, but only a tool after all. I don't find using one especially fun, but when one ponders the alernative . . .
I wonder if Lileks has a chain saw, him being so manly and all from living in MN.
Posted by: Michael G | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 10:42 AM
That's it, Silas, rub it in. Just wait till Neddie Jingo gets here. I'll bet he's cleared 30 acres with his chain saw.
Michael, if Lileks turns out to have one I'll bet he bought if from Hammacher Schlemmer and not a real manly man hardware store. And if he owns one then I'm going to get one too. I will not be out-machoed by that mall shopping weenie. Good to see you again. Been missing your comments.
Posted by: Lance | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 10:48 AM
Michael's got a point about it being a tool. An eighteen-inch, oily, filthy tool, a ravager of innocent vegetation. It goes RRRRRRRRRRR and vibrates nearly out of control when you pull its rope, and it's insanely dangerous even in experienced hands. Yeah, it's a tool all right.
My Husky failed me miserably the last time I used it. I was trying to take off a branch on a black walnut that's encroaching on our screened porch. Teetering crazily atop my ladder extended to its fullest length, I couldn't keep the damned thing running. Wonder Woman, steadying the ladder, was scathing in her scorn. "Having trouble, big guy? Should I call a pro?"
I finished the job with a handsaw. What a humiliation.
Later, I found the trouble -- a fouled spark plug. Triumphantly, I demonstrated the newly viripotent instrument to WW at the kitchen window. "That's nice that your little toy is working again, honey. Now come in and help me make the beds."
I'm wondering if the chainsaw might be useful for knapping flints.
Posted by: NeddieJingo | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 11:32 AM
As a former three-year-old child who lived in North Dakota (and who prefers hand-powered tools to power hand tools) -- excellent blog. Long may your keyboard wave.
Posted by: bcd | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 12:37 PM
You know, Lance, you could start on the kids model first and then work your way up to a real man's saw. :)
Posted by: SAP | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 01:37 PM
How come nobody's suggested a double-bitted axe?
Posted by: Linkmeister | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 02:31 PM
It can now be revealed. My true name is Gary Walrath. And yes, my beard is that full, and that white. I snack on sawdust and wash it down with bar and chain oil. When I fart, it sounds just like an Unlimited Hotsaw running a 90hp 500cc Husqvarva motorcycle engine.
Te hell with eye protection -- just squint, you'll be OK. I don't even wear mules.
Posted by: NeddieJingo | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 02:42 PM
If you don't know what the terms "saw kerf" or "kickback" (when applied to saws and logs) mean don't get within 15 feet of a chain saw
Posted by: Mark | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 03:38 PM
On my office wall is a picture drawn by my then 4-year-old son, entitled "My daddy up a ladder with a chainsaw". He's captured the look of insouciant bravado with which I tried to convince my wife I knew what I was doing, underlaid by the sheer terror I actually felt. I cheated though, my chainsaw is electric, so really a milquetoast kind of saw.
The wind blew over a 40-ft cottonwood in the back yard, the night before we were leaving for Australia. Actually it didn't go over, it was just leaning over the house.. I rushed out, bought the chainsaw, rushed back, looked up on the internet how to estimate the height of a tree (so I could fell it in the appropriate direction), and had at it. Stayed up until 11 cleaning it up, then went inside to finish packing, such fun.
Posted by: Doug K | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 05:36 PM
Normally I just quietly visit these parts from time to time but I just can't resist....
As any real man brought up in the southern shadow of a city built on a mound on the west bank of the Mississippi just south of the confluence with the Missouri river would know, the first step in dealing with all three scenarios doesn't involve a power tool at all (you don't want to overkill the situation). This problem screams for a logging chain, a rear axle and a case of beer (this is the manly brute-force phase of solving the problem).
Once the limb is removed to where nobody's gonna immediately fall over it you then move immediately to the second phase - adequate study. And any manly man worth his salt knows that adequate study takes time (this is the intellectual phase)....and more beer....and perhaps BBQed pork steaks and brats....and perhaps the formation of a regular sunday afternoon research group involving more beer, more pork steaks and more brats. After what seems like an adequate period of study, maybe three or four years, you'll be tempted to prepare a report of findings. Caution - do not rush into this phase. Time is your ally.
There are at least three advantages to this approach: 1) no one gets hurt due to haste or exploding chainsaws*, 2) a new problem is likely to come along which will completely make the old problem moot, and 3) it's ecologically sound.
*however, there might be some danger in the logging-chain phase (this is also refered to as the "interesting" phase) - I suggest video taping for enjoyment during phase II.
Posted by: Jim | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 06:43 PM
Chris Clark is also a manly man:
http://www.faultline.org/place/pinolecreek/archives/002457.html
I am not touching a chain-saw, oh no!
Posted by: coturnix | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 07:00 PM
I guess this would be a bad time to mention that even my wife know how to handle a chain saw.
Posted by: fightingdem | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 07:11 PM
Man, I am going to make some sensitive male a lousy wife some day.
My definitive experience of men wielding chainsaws is the afternoon I spent helping my dad cut down trees in front of my grand-dad's cabin in the Yukon. Dad wielded the chainsaw, Mom had a machete, and we children scampered in with mud to cover the stumps so that if the Federal government flew overhead, it *might* look as though the beavers had done it.
I swear to God that I now live a quiet, bookish life in Manhattan. Some things, though, you never do grow up out of.
Posted by: Jackmormon | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 08:03 PM
Three year old children who live in Minnesota are more macho than me.
Do you really want to admit that James Lileks's daughter is more macho than you? Aieee!!
Posted by: Jaquandor | Thursday, July 28, 2005 at 08:18 PM
True wisdom means never trying to undertake those things that you cannot possibly accomplish without doing serious harm to either yourself or others. That wisdom only comes from years of experience and spectacular failures caused by overreaching. Knowing your limits and being "manly" (whatever the hell that is) enough to understand them is a significant accomplishment.
Incoherent? Perhaps ~ but it's late. Good post.
Posted by: Jack (CommonSenseDesk) | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 01:58 AM
I like to think I am as dainty and effete as it is possible to be, but chainsaws are not dangerous. If you're tired or not concentrating or silly you can kill yourself with one but the same is true of shotguns or lawnmowers. You just put on the hard hat and the silly trousers (actually the hat is for poofs but why take risks) and hold onto the thing tight.
Posted by: dsquared | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 06:50 AM
Ok, folks, you've got me convinced. I'm going to buy a chainsaw. The heck with my marriage. I'm a man, dammit!
But first I'm taking Jim's suggestion and getting me a pickup, a logging chain, and a case of beer. Who wants to form a study group?
Angie, if the chainsaw wins there won't be pictures unless I still have enough hands left to take them myself. The blonde's hatred of tools stems from a fear of all technology that she inherited from her father and that includes cameras. She's the worst photographer in the world. If she rushed out with the camera, after dialing 911 I hope, all she'd get would be a lot of pictures of grass and sawdust with, maybe, the base of the tree that was my Waterloo in a corner.
Posted by: Lance | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 07:07 AM
Like you, Lance, my dead late wife and mother-in-law would never let me touch the Poulan at the cabin in the Adirondacks, so I decided to play Paul Bunyan with an axe and one of those band saws where someone should take the other end. The pine was long dead and not that thick and all went well until I realized I had no idea which way it would fall, on the cabin or into the clearing. That is when I saw your logic in getting a pickup first; I could have bulldozed it in the direction of the lake. As it was, it fell in the direction of the woodpile.
Before you take up the chain saw, read Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown's autobiography.
Posted by: Exiled in NJ | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 10:58 AM
I'm pretty pro-chainsaw myself. I'm a network engineer, so I have an affinity for the use of machines to extend my will and shape the soft, pudding-like natural world into the form of my desires. Just kidding. Mostly. Unfortunately, as an urban apartment-dweller, I have pitifully few opportunities for power-tool-wielding.
However, I think it's pretty clear at this point that Neddie Jingo is in fact the manliest man in the universe. I may have two very robust testicles, but he obviously has no fewer than three, and probably more like 7 or 8, each the size of a grapefruit or small melon. Because while I have in fact used a chainsaw to accomplish the super-fun task of cutting things up, I shave with ordinary, wussified shave gel and one of those razors with 16 blades and 4 lubricating strips. But to shave with a chainsaw? That is to achieve the platonic form of butchness. Neddie Jingo: the Paul Bunyan of our times.
Posted by: res publica | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 11:05 AM
Ok, if you came to my house you would observe:
a) Two gas chainsaws, small and upper-mid sized
b) The larger chainsaw clearly sprouting a newer bar (Oregon bar on Echo saw), indicating that it has been used enough to have worn out at least one original bar. Again, that is the bar itself, not the chain.
c) A number of spare chains, the boxes marked with bright labels marked "Warning: High Kickback, for professional use only"
d) An electic chain sharpener bolted to the workplace
Now do my balls hang heavy and low, or what? Err, well, actually "what" as all this equipment is the property of my wife and not only do I rarely use it but I'm actually not allowed to do so without clearance.
I do note that all this stuff (the new bar, chains, and general expenses) go on my credit card, though. In fact I had to buy her the sharpener for Christmas a few years back. That must count for something on the manliness meter, I hope.
Posted by: a different chris | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 12:14 PM
Oh, and I should have mentioned that all this stuff wasn't bought at a hardware store, but a shop that specializes in commercial power equipment. Hardware stores are apparently sissy places for this stuff.
Posted by: a different chris | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 12:17 PM
I totally need to go to a store that specializes in "commercial power equiptment". I bet they have some great killin' gear.
Posted by: res publica | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 02:04 PM
Ah, life's deep questions. Husqvarna or Stihl? I'm a Stihl man, myself, but my wife thinks that Husqvarna is very sexy, the way saying the name makes you exhale and nearly simultaneously press your upper teeth lightly against your lower lip followed by that roll of the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Yes, superior in every way to "McCollough".
Posted by: jeff Boatright | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 02:21 PM
I've used a chainsaw. It's not difficult at all. And I'm a weenie girl.
Of course I also run my own roto-tiller and other power tools. I don't like having to rely on the kindness of strangers.
Posted by: carla | Friday, July 29, 2005 at 08:46 PM
Great. I didn't mean to start a pissing contest with this post. I especially didn't mean to start a pissing contest that the girls would win!
Posted by: Lance | Sunday, July 31, 2005 at 08:37 AM