George's Jewelry
George VondriskaHere’s a common question; “What’s with the necklace that George always wears, and that ring on his right hand?” If you’ve been watching George’s videos for a while, you’ve seen him wearing the jewelry for a long time. What gives? That necklace looks like a tooth or claw. Where’d it come from?
These questions are asked so often that we took time out from the last video shoot to give George a chance to answer them. The necklace goes back to George’s experience with the Peace Corps in Swaziland, Africa. He’s had it for decades. The ring is part of a fraternal organization. Check out the video to learn more.
I get a lot of woodworking questions filtering my way, and every once in a while, non-woodworking questions. So one of them that actually comes in pretty often with the videos I've done for woodworking and other categories as well is what's the deal with that necklace that you wear? Because every once in a while, when I do something, it kinda falls out of my shirt. So here's the deal. We've got two pieces of jewelry we can talk about here.
Lived in Africa with Peace Corps for almost three years. Peace Corps looks for 27 months, I was over there teaching woodworking and then did quite a bit of traveling in Africa after Peace Corps and hitchhiked everywhere. So one day I'm hitchhiking and in the back of this open pickup truck riding with a bunch of local people, host country nationals. And one of the kids was asking me about where I was going, what I was doing. And I talked about, I'm here from the United States and hitchhiking around the country.
And he said, "Oh, sir, you must have a lion's tooth." And well, why do I need a lion's tooth? "Well, you must have a lion's tooth "because it's good luck for traveling. "If you have a lion's tooth "nothing bad will ever happen to you." So the next time I was in a game park, and I think it was the Kruger National Park, they have an over abundance or a lion dies of natural causes, so they have this stuff for sale. So this was perfectly legally purchased. So I purchased the lion's tooth and made a necklace out of it.
And then, with the other beads on here, a big thing in Swaziland, where I was, is the sangomas, the traditional healers, what we would call a witch doctor, except that sounds a little derogatory, so traditional healer sounds better. So for the sangomas, the beads and the colors of the beads are important. Red is a color that they feel really ties people to their ancestors. So these glass beads also came from Africa and became part of the necklace. And I've been wearing that thing since 1990, so for 26 years.
The string has been replaced a number of times, but same tooth, same four beads that I put on there in Swaziland, Africa a bunch of years ago. And hardly ever have it off. It only comes off if one of the video people says it's bumping the microphone, you need to take it off. So that's the story with that. And then the other thing I get questions about is my ring, which is that, and a little time-worn and beat up looking right now.
That's my Masonic ring, so I'm in a Masonic lodge here in Wisconsin, have been for, I don't know, 15 years, maybe more, I'd have to think about that for a second. So the ring has a bunch of Masonic symbols on it, and much like the necklace, it's something that unless I'm doing work where I really shouldn't have a ring on or can't have a ring on, or a video person says take it off, and that's something else that's on me all the time. And every once in a while, a Mason in the crowd will notice it and I'll get a comment about that, which is kinda cool. So those are my two primary forms of jewelry. And if you've been wondering what the deal is with those, now you know.
Very nice! If you ever get to Central Illinois/St Louis MO join us!
Tell George he should get a Past Masters Ring he earned it.
Thanks for sharing. Nice to get a little bit of the personal touch.
Friendly advice from someone who watched people learn the hard way -- jewelry and power tools are a dangerous mix. I was with a guy who had his hand pulled into a lathe when his ring snagged on an edge. We couldn’t determine exactly what snagged because it happened so fast. He didn’t suffer a serious injury, but it sure woke everyone up and he was wide-eyed the rest of the day. Another guy had his necklace snag on a running table saw blade when he leaned in to look at something -- just ripped the necklace off and sent it flying 30 feet hitting the back wall hard. Guy number 3 was back in the long-hair-hippy days -- he leaned into a drill press as he was drilling and it grabbed his hair, smacked his head into the drill chuck and ripped out a nice chunk of scalp -- George doesn’t have to heed this one. :-) After witnessing this, I am the most cautious guy in the shop and people get irked with me because I am always stopping them to modify their behavior if I spot them doing something risky. I have jewelry cup on a shelf just outside the shop door and the rule is you don’t enter wearing it. I know, I’m like a one man OSHA department. Sorry.