Punxsutawney

The smell of damp sawdust floats heavy on the Punxsutawney air the night after a rainstorm. Outside Wizard’s Workshop, Randy is moseying alone between a small crane-outfitted truck, and the front display hall of his woodworking shop. Chainsaw-carved eagles rest in the bed of the parked white crane-truck. He is packing his array of wood carvings for a craft show in his hometown an hour north or so. My presence there is an inconvenience, but he’s a midwesterner and a business owner. He puts on a friendly smile. 

Like Punxsutawney, Randy lives a life of relative anonymity punctuated by moments of semi-fame. His early days as an ice sculptor earned him a regional reputation before he hung up his ice carving gloves for a chefs hat. As an executive chef and then culinary teacher, Randy again became a local name with a respected culinary reputation. Perhaps sensing another rut, he switched careers again, becoming a wood sculptor well into middle age. He says he got tired of bosses and wanted to run his own show. His name reentered popular consciousness recently when he carved a larger than life wooden likeness of president Donald Trump for a golf course client. Randy doesn’t wear his politics on his sleeve. Even in news coverage, he talks about the sculpture as a technical challenge and achievement. As we talk about his work, Randy offers a window into what makes his pursuits worthwhile:

“The thing with dignity in life is you make a name for yourself, but then you’ve gotta keep it. It’s a lot like work. Building yourself up, earning the respect of your peers and your community. Even back in the culinary world, it was always about the respect of your fellow professionals that makes it feel worthwhile. You do something, you get yourself a lot of pats on the back and that’s how you know you’ve got respect. That’s what gives me my dignity.”

In Randy’s world, the ties of the community are the markers of significance for one’s life. It’s a remarkably collectivist mindset. One that feels truer than the classic story of American Individualism. Asked about the good life, Randy again falls back on an element of his community:

“My biker brothers are the ones that make life high quality for me. Having a lot of biker brothers in my community. We’ve been riding together in a group for 20 years. And we’ve had a lot of us die over that time. Just last month we had a memorial service that’s sort of a finale type feeling. Not like the group is over. But just giving some closure to that moment. I don’t think I could stop riding though with everyone. We’ll keep riding together of course. That’s my community, it’s like my family.”

Framed like this, Randy has a life that wants for very little. His sense of self roots in the community around him. Even in grueling professions, or deadly hobbies, the sense of worth that comes from community validation far outweighs any of the risks. It feels a bit like an answer to many of the self-righteous rhetorical questions of “how could they do that when it’s against their own interest?” Confirmation from the community you sit within is the highest interest people follow. Without that, it can be hard for people to feel they live a life of dignity. Like swimming upstream. That has real force. Randy is the first interview on this line of questioning. But the implication of his answers are already clear and overarching. If your communities are the basis for a sense of self then even if riding your motorcycle or supporting a policy can maim or kill you and your friends, the fact that you’re doing it together makes it worth it.