I used to live near a paper mill. Several of them. Some of my family worked there, including my grandfather and my uncle Joe (my grandmother’s sister’s husband). Both my grandfather and Uncle Joe were in the Navy, and they plied their skills at tying knots to their new trade in the private sector.
Perhaps it is not widely imagined how paper is processed by a mill. Actually, all of the paper mills in Downingtown are recycled paper plants. They don’t use cut trees to make paper, just old paper and cardboard. The paper is put into a big vat of chemicals to help break it down and re-form it into pulp, then it’s pressed out through some machinery to be flattened and dried. The resulting paper can be any thickness, and can be used to construct many things, like boxes for board games, french fry containers, or inch-thick concrete pillar molds.
When flat, cut stock comes off the line, it’s often stacked in piles and wrapped in cellophane. Prior and in addition to this method of keeping the paper from flying all over the place, the paper was tied together with string. If you’ve ever tried to tie a knot around something box-shaped, you know the standard difficulties. Now try imagining that the string has to be tight enough to withstand shipment and that the box isn’t a solid object, but many thousands of shifting pieces of paper or cardboard. Then, perhaps, the benefit of such a specific knot becomes apparent.
During a Christmas visit to my Mom’s, Aunt Rosie and Uncle Joe stopped for a visit. Because I had my video camera, Mom suggested that I record the special knot to record this slowly vanishing art. I think it’s sad that many useful and clever things such as this become lost to time as technology progresses, and was happy to record it for posterity. Benefit from the simple wisdom of these talents that are too infrequently practiced.
The roll of string that Uncle Joe is using is the same type of roll we used to use at the Bay (more stories to tap there) to tie everything. (Think tomato plants, mostly.) All of the rolls at the Bay were smaller than this one, and they lasted forever. The roll in this video looks practically new, and is likely eternal.
Yes, the gift being tortured is Pat’s XBox.
