For Evan Sagerman, sometimes forgotten scrap materials can turn into the solutions for new problems.
Thirty years ago, I used to make candlesticks out of scrap materials. I was spending a month in a free apartment where I was refinishing floors and painting walls in exchange for a roof over my head. This was a windfall, since I had just left my marriage, had no job, no housing, and no money. The apartment had electricity and running water, but no heat or light fixtures. Lighting fixtures were expensive, so I bought a box of candles. Candles, I quickly learned, needed candlesticks.
When my life moved on, I kept two of the candlesticks. One was the rusty head of a garden hoe, bent to hold a candle upright. The other was a wooden sanding block, a clamp, and some scrap aluminum fashioned into a lantern. Souvenirs from a darker time in my life.
Fast forward 30 years, and I’m looking at a large hole rats have gnawed into our family’s backyard chicken coop. The rats are feasting nightly on chicken feed. Our hens aren’t bothered, but I am. A little research tells me the first step is to cover over the rats’ entrance, preferably with something metal.
I looked around the house for some sturdy wire or a metal plate. Nothing. As I picked through a box of miscellaneous scraps, I found the lantern made out of the sanding block. I remembered making it, I remembered why I’d kept it, and I realized it was time to let it go. So I tossed it into the trash can and returned to my search. Still nothing.