[Music]
[Applause]
how you doing today folks
[Applause]
yes they do call me dr. Hodge no I
cannot save your life but I can build
your wooden dreams hello my name is Eric
birch this is how I roll
this is what I do and this is who I am
let’s get started I see you guys have
all taken a moment to get to know
Charlie the board behind me is this
chair
nothing was added to him there are no
nails or screws he was simply taken from
what he was and refined into what he was
meant to be
see there’s this really weird fact that
none of us ever actually think about no
one in this room nor plant or animal on
this planet ever chose to be alive
someone else made that decision for us
for me my parents decided to have well
me and for Charlie I’m saying someone
probably like planted a seed or some
wind dragged a seed to a fertile soil
we’re not as far off from trees as you
think Charlie’s mission was simple grow
up in South America have good roots get
plenty of water and grow towards the
sunlight I on the other hand like
everyone else who’s in this room and
that we know how’d you find a reason for
my life to matter something for me to do
with the time in the day all right so we
can all agree that like 9 times 9 is 81
and a comma goes somewhere in a sentence
right why do we all have to know that
I’m not what you call a good student
mostly because I learned how to read
five years ago and I couldn’t figure out
why people were freaking out about tests
and essays I mean if you show up they
could like give you a passing grade
right here’s the thing though
I walked into a woodshop class when I
was in fifth grade and the teacher
handed us a board and two pieces of
plywood and six nails said measure up
3/8 of an inch from the bottom an equal
distance on each side and two
Centerpoint drive the nails well i
jumped around with joy because i finally
understood something those nails were
gonna hit each other
I brought my point up proudly to my
teacher and he exclaimed that he had
been doing it for 20 years and they just
seemed to miss but that was his thought
and that’s when it changed because the
question always was Eric do you
understand what I’m saying to you and it
quickly became Eric why are you trying
to challenge me so much budget cuts in
education reform took away my woodshop
because apparently we needed to use
computers so there I was I got stuck
back in the classrooms that didn’t make
any sense to me from the beginning to
the end what I sat in class from 7
o’clock in the morning till 3 o’clock
simply confused as to why we were there
I did this for years and then we got
into high school and I found this really
awesome thing called tech crew for all
of you guys who don’t know what tech
crew is that’s tech crew the lights are
tech crew were the people behind the
scenes and I signed up immediately
my teacher realized within like 2 weeks
that this made more sense to me than the
other students and I was put in charge
of all of construction but for the next
two years I still couldn’t figure out
what people were worrying about essays
why was i spending my days sitting in
class well the truth be told if I sat in
class for 7 hours they would let me go
to tech crew so I showed up in the
morning but I decided that I deserved an
education as much as anyone else did so
in my junior year I went to her own
Monmouth County vocational schools and
started taking carpentry classes I met
my friend and teacher there Larry to
granny I still talk to him to this day
we worked together within two months and
we showing up to like 10 days ago so I
figured out what I knew what I could
understand what made sense to me
and what we all thought was the worst
time of our life ended and turns out
that was the easy part high school was
over but I wanted to make something of
myself to spend my days doing something
worthwhile so I headed off to college
about this time Charlie as a tree was
ending the end of his life cycle we
would meet about five years later in
Boston but before I went to Boston I
would have to head down to South
Carolina and up to Rhode Island to two
different institutions the first one
wanted me to read Shakespeare and I
still can’t read didn’t help the second
one it was great I got to spend five
hours a day in a woodshop class but I
nearly failed out of every class they
put directly after it because if I could
sit in the corner for another half an
hour and do a little more sanding or get
that coat just right make that joint fit
better well then I really need to go to
math class and that was all right and I
graduated by the skin of my teeth came
back and worked for a furniture maker
and then I found this magical place
called the North Bennet Street School in
Boston you’ve probably never heard of it
but it’s America’s oldest trade school
it was about a hundred and fifty people
in the whole thing and I got to be me
unapologetically without rules without
quotes without tests I just got to be me
because I stood in this apron behind a
workbench and was handed piles of wood
and learned to make tools razor-sharp
and turn what nature created into
beautiful things it was frickin also I
would stand there back hurtin stomach
empty with a smile on my face at nine
o’clock at night waiting for the janitor
push me out the door halfway through my
session that’s where I met Charlie he
came in on a flatbed truck as the board
you see behind me see
if you really look at Charlie if you
take a minute and you look at his grain
pattern and how it flows with his shape
and you look at how his legs match each
other perfectly but are different from
the rails how he flows into his piece
well that’s just a result of how he got
here that’s a result of every storm he’d
ever been through good summers bad
winters and every animal that ever lived
in him caused him to have this
particular pattern and I would have to
say it’s pretty obvious that if you look
at who I was and how I got here and if
you look at who Charlie was and how he
got here well nothing was added to
either of us we just simply were refined
into the person we were always meant to
be because I could have been anything
and Charlie could have been anything but
if you really look at us it’s clear
Charlie was meant to be a chair and I
was meant to be a furniture maker and I
thank you for your time
[Applause]
[Applause]
how you doing today folks
[Applause]
yes they do call me dr. Hodge no I
cannot save your life but I can build
your wooden dreams hello my name is Eric
birch this is how I roll
this is what I do and this is who I am
let’s get started I see you guys have
all taken a moment to get to know
Charlie the board behind me is this
chair
nothing was added to him there are no
nails or screws he was simply taken from
what he was and refined into what he was
meant to be
see there’s this really weird fact that
none of us ever actually think about no
one in this room nor plant or animal on
this planet ever chose to be alive
someone else made that decision for us
for me my parents decided to have well
me and for Charlie I’m saying someone
probably like planted a seed or some
wind dragged a seed to a fertile soil
we’re not as far off from trees as you
think Charlie’s mission was simple grow
up in South America have good roots get
plenty of water and grow towards the
sunlight I on the other hand like
everyone else who’s in this room and
that we know how’d you find a reason for
my life to matter something for me to do
with the time in the day all right so we
can all agree that like 9 times 9 is 81
and a comma goes somewhere in a sentence
right why do we all have to know that
I’m not what you call a good student
mostly because I learned how to read
five years ago and I couldn’t figure out
why people were freaking out about tests
and essays I mean if you show up they
could like give you a passing grade
right here’s the thing though
I walked into a woodshop class when I
was in fifth grade and the teacher
handed us a board and two pieces of
plywood and six nails said measure up
3/8 of an inch from the bottom an equal
distance on each side and two
Centerpoint drive the nails well i
jumped around with joy because i finally
understood something those nails were
gonna hit each other
I brought my point up proudly to my
teacher and he exclaimed that he had
been doing it for 20 years and they just
seemed to miss but that was his thought
and that’s when it changed because the
question always was Eric do you
understand what I’m saying to you and it
quickly became Eric why are you trying
to challenge me so much budget cuts in
education reform took away my woodshop
because apparently we needed to use
computers so there I was I got stuck
back in the classrooms that didn’t make
any sense to me from the beginning to
the end what I sat in class from 7
o’clock in the morning till 3 o’clock
simply confused as to why we were there
I did this for years and then we got
into high school and I found this really
awesome thing called tech crew for all
of you guys who don’t know what tech
crew is that’s tech crew the lights are
tech crew were the people behind the
scenes and I signed up immediately
my teacher realized within like 2 weeks
that this made more sense to me than the
other students and I was put in charge
of all of construction but for the next
two years I still couldn’t figure out
what people were worrying about essays
why was i spending my days sitting in
class well the truth be told if I sat in
class for 7 hours they would let me go
to tech crew so I showed up in the
morning but I decided that I deserved an
education as much as anyone else did so
in my junior year I went to her own
Monmouth County vocational schools and
started taking carpentry classes I met
my friend and teacher there Larry to
granny I still talk to him to this day
we worked together within two months and
we showing up to like 10 days ago so I
figured out what I knew what I could
understand what made sense to me
and what we all thought was the worst
time of our life ended and turns out
that was the easy part high school was
over but I wanted to make something of
myself to spend my days doing something
worthwhile so I headed off to college
about this time Charlie as a tree was
ending the end of his life cycle we
would meet about five years later in
Boston but before I went to Boston I
would have to head down to South
Carolina and up to Rhode Island to two
different institutions the first one
wanted me to read Shakespeare and I
still can’t read didn’t help the second
one it was great I got to spend five
hours a day in a woodshop class but I
nearly failed out of every class they
put directly after it because if I could
sit in the corner for another half an
hour and do a little more sanding or get
that coat just right make that joint fit
better well then I really need to go to
math class and that was all right and I
graduated by the skin of my teeth came
back and worked for a furniture maker
and then I found this magical place
called the North Bennet Street School in
Boston you’ve probably never heard of it
but it’s America’s oldest trade school
it was about a hundred and fifty people
in the whole thing and I got to be me
unapologetically without rules without
quotes without tests I just got to be me
because I stood in this apron behind a
workbench and was handed piles of wood
and learned to make tools razor-sharp
and turn what nature created into
beautiful things it was frickin also I
would stand there back hurtin stomach
empty with a smile on my face at nine
o’clock at night waiting for the janitor
push me out the door halfway through my
session that’s where I met Charlie he
came in on a flatbed truck as the board
you see behind me see
if you really look at Charlie if you
take a minute and you look at his grain
pattern and how it flows with his shape
and you look at how his legs match each
other perfectly but are different from
the rails how he flows into his piece
well that’s just a result of how he got
here that’s a result of every storm he’d
ever been through good summers bad
winters and every animal that ever lived
in him caused him to have this
particular pattern and I would have to
say it’s pretty obvious that if you look
at who I was and how I got here and if
you look at who Charlie was and how he
got here well nothing was added to
either of us we just simply were refined
into the person we were always meant to
be because I could have been anything
and Charlie could have been anything but
if you really look at us it’s clear
Charlie was meant to be a chair and I
was meant to be a furniture maker and I
thank you for your time
[Applause]
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