William John Link, Walt’s grandfather, was born on February 10, 1884, in West Point to Isadore and Teresa Kempker Link. He was born in the Kempker family home above the store as told in this post. The Links lived on a farm outside of West Point.
Sometimes in the course of a roleplaying game (RPG) the characters come across documents. These are often very important to the overall plot of the game. But documents are boring. Players don’t want to sit around and sift through pages of text to find important clues. They want to roll some dice and move on to the next scene.
You probably don’t want to write pages of text either. What’s a poor GM to do?
So we were talking and realized that our blog had it’s second birthday! That’s right, we’ve been writing this blog for two years now! It has been an amazing ride and we are so glad you have all come along with us.
In part one of this set, I discussed how I acquired my Gerstner tool chest and the how I started the restoration process. I carefully taped over the hardware I couldn’t remove and cleaned the chest with Murphy’s Oil Soap and with a rag. I scrubbed it fairly hard to get all the dirt off. A bit of linseed oil to brought the shine back up on the chest.
A few years ago, Walt and I were at a model engineering show checking out the many cool engines and tools. There were a couple of dealers who had older Gerstner tool chests for sale. I managed to sweet talk one of them down in price a bit and walked away with a rough looking but solid tool chest – for my studio.
I had originally planned to write about the anniversary of one of Walt’s great-great aunts, Rhoda Hole. Our information had her marrying John Christy on January 13, 1861. But it turned out not to be the case.
The family information we had told us that she was John Swisher Hole’s younger sister, born in 1846. The notes also mentioned that she had been married twice, the second time to someone with the last name of Monroe, but that was all the information we had.
Have you ever had trouble with an ordinary slotted screwdriver, and the screws it purports to drive? Did it slip, and mar the object you were working on? Perhaps it left the slot scarred up, promising an even more difficult job the next time you have to take out that screw. I have had those troubles too. And the reason is simple: ordinary screwdrivers aren’t made to fit screws! That’s where gunsmith screwdrivers come in.