The Miracle that is

By Jack Dionne

"Once upon a time" as the old saying goes, there was a highly respected piece of philosophy in Texas, that went like this: "When the Good Master made mankind, He made men different; He made some men big and some small; some strong and some weak; some good and some bad; and then along came Mr. Colt, and made them all the same size."

In the lumber industry there was another old bit of philosophy that seemed so rock-ribbed and iron-clad that nobody ever dreamed it could be wrong. This was that no matter how hard you tried you could never cut a board out of a log that was either longer or wider than the log itself. How could you, said we? Boards won't stretch ! And that law of limitation prevailed for a hundred years.

And then came the miracle, so simple and practical that we wondered we hadn't thought of it long before. There came a triple-play; a combination of wood, glue, and lathe; and when coordinated by alotof human ingenuity, it made the modern miracle of miracles that men callPlywood. Yes, sir, not only can we now make a board longer and wider than the log from which it is cut, but we can make it longer than your b.uilding lot and wider than your entire house; as long and as wide as human necessity dictates. And we can leave out all the defects, knots, cracks, discolorations, etc., inherent in a plain board born of a plainly-sawed log. Yes sir, we sure can !

Just goes to show that the days of miracles are notas has often been proclaimed by the thoughtless-past. Thinking and ambitious men make their own miraclesand miracle days. No longer does the builder who desires a wooden wall have to put together innumerable small boards and fasten them with innumerable nails, leaving the face of the wall creased with innumerable joints and cracks that mar the beauty of the surface, suck up paint, and make an un-smooth and un-beautiful job. Instead, he slaps a big, smooth, flawless, beautiful board up against the studs, hits it with a few scattered tacks and covers and adorns it with a paint spray-gun-and there it is, all in the shortest possible time, with the least possible effort, the fewest possible nails, and the finest possible results. The difference between the old and the new is like the difference between a wheelbarrow and a lift truck.

You often hear people say that we are living in the airplane age, and they think they have covered the subject. But when it comes to the building industry, this is definitely and undoubtedly the Plywood age. The useful and important things that can be done with Plywood defy computation. There just aren't that many digits in the arithmetic. Plywood can just naturally "run faster, jump higher, dive deeper, and come up dryer" than any other building material ever devised by human mind, built by human hand, or directed by the wisdom of a guiding Providence.

And, Brother, if that doesn't cover the subject, say so, and we'll guarantee to think of something more.

And, in this Annual Plywood Issue, we will try and prove what we just said !