The woodworking machinery room at McKinley Junior High was full of dull-green, heavy iron equipment, but what I remember most was the enormous planer. It must have stood what seemed to me, six feet tall, with its own coal-fired powerplant stoked by tiny, but robust men wearing nothing but loincloths, soaked in sweat and marinating in black grime. When Mr. Dickey fired it up I saw the dwarven men grasp the giant handles of the gear cogs and turn the works, first very slowly to overcome the...
