Close Up Norm Abram
N
orm has a favorite spot in his house—the house he built himself. It’s a large vaulted room that contains the kitchen, dining,
and family rooms. The rest of the house is stick built but this room is a grand timber frame with large posts and beams made from Sitka spruce and Port Orford Cedar. Some years ago Norm wrote about that space: “I take so much pleasure in studying the frame. I look at its sturdiness and know it will be standing for many decades, maybe a century or two. In our part of the country, that’s what one wants in a home: a sense of durability.” And he’s right. We want our homes to be durable; we want them to last. And not just our homes, we want lots of things to last: our tools, our friendships, our legacies, the love we share with our families. It’s a powerful sentiment, this idea that things and people will always be there. And it’s a fitting observation from a guy who’s pretty durable himself. Think about this: Norm’s been on This Old House for thirty-two years now. He just wrapped up twenty-one years of making The New Yankee Workshop. In any profession, that’s a long time. In television, it’s the very definition of durable. People stop me all the time to say hello or shake hands, and invariably they end up asking about Norm. “How is he?” they ask, or “Tell him I said hi.” They say it as if they know him; as if Norm knows them! That’s what happens when things last. We become attached to them, we rely on them. And after thirty-two years, we rely on and are attached to Norm as much as ever.
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