OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

47150 Cougarjack@a... 1998‑07‑31 Who IS this guy? Was: RE: Treenails and jowls

Cougarjack is Nick Catania in real life.....the "Cougarjack" is not my
invention, but was inherited from the person who passed this AOL account on to
me.  It's a pain to change the username on this service, so I just left it.
There WAS a good bio on me somewhere...in fact,  it started a couple of
threads back in the old days after LaMantia jumped my bones on saw sharpening
and setting.  I wonder what happened to the bio, heh listmoms???
For the record,  the lost bio is probably not the fault of the listmoms....a
few years ago, I fell to a serious illness and dropped offlist for almost a
year. The bio was probably purged.
I'm happy to hear that some folks are entertained by my postings. I've always
felt at home on the porch,  and I'll be around for the duration,  as long as
there is wood to fool with.
New bio follows:
Nick Catania,  commonly known around here as "Cougarjack",  resides in a very
old house which is in a state of constant renovation on his small farm/tree
plantation in Southern New Jersey,  accompanied by a very intelligent Golden
Retriever, who also collects old tools.   Formerly married to the classic
anti-christ of tools, machinery  and woodworking,  who happliy took a powder
and left behind lots of storage space for more tools. (P~~~)
Nick has dabbled for most of his 51 years at logging & sawmilling, handtool
collecting, boatbuilding, knife making & collecting, commercial fishing,  old
truck restoration,  timberframing,  leatherworking, blacksmithing, amateur
prospecting and mineral collecting, hunting,  gunsmithing, and other such
oddball pastimes from centuries past.
Nick has formal education in several scientific and engineering disciplines,
has served in public land use and regulatory functions,  has authored
conservation and preservation plans, was an aviator when he could still see
the little numbers on the gauges,   and regularly appears  in broadcloth
cape  and salt-hardened leather pauldrons at various re-enactment events as a
barbarian briggand and scoundrel. Formerly,  he could be seen fighting in live
steel events with broadsword and axe, but now he is satisfied with sitting in
the shade drinking good paga and burping while watching the young bucks test
their steel.

Nick especially loves old trucks, new money,  aged  handtools, that big hunk
of nice clear wood between the branch nodes in pinus strobus (eastern white
pine) curly maple, persimmon heart, eastern red cedar, and black walnut.

Nick detests saws with all the right hand teeth longer than all the left hand
teeth, (this was the statement that got LaMantia started) porcelain fence
insulators hidden in logs, and stag beetle larvae which consume more wood from
my woodpile than I do.  Also reproduction anything, plastic packaging, and the
telephone.

Nick's first love is the study of wood and its structure, uses, and growth
habits.

Current projects are restoring an old logbeam sawmill,  an old ford tractor,
and an old dodge pickup.

bio mode off

Regards,
Nick



Recent Bios FAQ