When John met Yoko...It is interesting how two words can sound so much alike, have the same Latin root, virtus, and have so little in common in their actual meanings. The once commonly used word virtue, meaning morally good or righteous, and the overused word virtual meaning "sort of but not really," could be thrown into my earlier discussion of real wood vs. manufactured wood-like materials aka. partical board.

Particle board at its best can be made to look like wood. In an examination at a microscopic level, wood fibers can be found. But to call particle board virtuous rather than virtual would be a tremendous stretch of both the language and the imagination. It seems like imagination is abundant (for some things), and that can be a good. John Lennon imagined a world without war. I'll go for that.

Telling how John Lennon met Yoko Ono is an obvious ploy to increase readership of this blog. Please forgive me for pandering to pop culture. At some point, I hope that concern about the hands will become pop culture, but it will take a tremendous growth in readership for that to happen.

John Lennon attended an opening of artist Yoko Ono's work "where he climbed a ladder to the ceiling to see one of Ono's installations: a placard with a tiny word on it--"Yes." She gave him a card reading "Breathe;" and requested five shillings to hammer an imaginary nail into the wall. His famous retort: an imaginary five shillings to hammer the imaginary nail. The connection was instantaneous."

So here we have it. A virtual hammer, virtual nails, what I must assume was a real ladder and wall. But, here I am, a relic of the past, a craftsman for God's sake, looking for virtue in it. I would prefer a real hammer, maybe a Vaughan, some coated framing nails (we call them cc sinkers), some real wood, maybe oak so the hammering would require strength and some nails would bend. Regardless, I am imagining a world at peace.

Now why can't hammers all be real and war be virtual? I suspect that if all children were empowered to create things of usefulness and beauty...things for real... war would fade from the horrors of human imagination. Do you think I'm stretching things a bit? You'll never know unless you give me a hand. Take a few moments and introduce your friends to the Wisdom of the Hands. We may start a movement....for real.