Playing "catch-up"

Hi Everyone! It's been a while since I last posted. Problem is, the more I put posting off, the lazier I became! This is a recap of the carvings so I won't belabor the "work-up" stories for each of the carvings. However, here's how a summer of carving went. Each of the carvings you'll see needed to be kept from the public until each person received their carving. The issue was that all of the four carvings happened to be presented just about at the same time frame!

 

The first of four is "Passing On Tradition" to pay tribute to all of the Disney Tour Guides. It was finished in plenty of time but the presentation took a great deal of timing to get all the Guides, Coordinators and Leaders together at one time.
One day I passed by one of my Manager's office and I simply asked him for an idea for a carving dedicated to the Walt Disney Tour Guides. Without hesitation, Jeff drew up this idea about "hands" and passing on a symbol of the Tour Guides. It would be "Mickey's" hand passing a pin onto a human hand. It was an awesome idea! I loved the idea the minute he said it. We talked about trying to make the piece appropriate for everyone so I settled on a color of the person's hand that could imply it could be any person.

"Passing On Tradition"

(The hands are almost full size. The gold pin is a little larger than the actual pin.)
 

I took the past summer to workup the piece for the NCVA Command Display Center in Pensacola. It is the first carving to be raffled off for the benefit of the Display Center. In the middle of that project I was asked to consider making several "trophies" for the Tour Guides and Leaders who took part in the "Walking Challenge" at Team Disney. No problem! Except those three little Mickey's took more time than I thought. It was a busy summer but it all came together just fine.

 

This carving consists of three pieces. It's two first place Mickey Mouse figures and one second place Mickey Mouse.

(About the "Walking Challenge," All the Tour Guides and their Coordinators simply tallied all their steps on their phones while working. The idea was to see if (as a group) they could walk great distances. Well, it started out "walking" to all of the Disney parks World wide! It ended up walking to the moon and beyond! The Winner was just shy of one million steps.)

 

Mickey Mouse Trophies

(The toughest part of carving these figures was trying to make them similar. )

 

 

In between these three carvings, I offered to carve a plaque for one of our retiring Cast Members.

 

 

The last and final piece of this summer is the carving for the Naval Cryptologic Veterans Association Cryptologic Command Display. (A repository of memorabilia of the Cryptologic Group.)

This piece was raffled off to benefit the museum.

 

"I Told You It Was Broke"

The piece was raffled off on November 14, 2019.

A wonderful retired CT and President of the Smokey Mountain Chapter of NCVA, (Joe B.) won the piece. He and his wife took ownership and announced they will keep the piece at home for one year and will donate it to the Cryptologic Command Display at their annual dinner next year.

I was deeply touched by his offer to give the piece a long term home where it will be enjoyed by many for years to come.

I had planned a different carving to be donated at the annual Gulf Coast Chapter of the NCVA this past November. Instead I decided to offer it to the man who's been behind me on all of the Navy carvings and presentations. This past year Bob was informed he had a serious health issue and fortunately surgery was successful. With a short "downtime" Force Mast Chief Bob Anderson was back at the helm of the CCD.
I was honored to present the carving "The R Brancher… That's Better" to Bob at a reunion and dinner of the Gulf Coast and Smokey Mountain Groups of the NCVA.

"The R Brancher… That's Better"