At the beginning of my
carpentry career, I
tried to remove the
main stair newel from a
150-year-old building. It was a
massive 8-inch-diameter walnut
post that had been mortised
deep into an underlying
beam. My partner and I tied
one end of a 3/8-inch nylon line
to the base of the newel and
the other end to the bumper of
a 3/4-ton pickup truck, thinking
the job would be easy. Our single
length of line soon became
two lengths. We tried again,
doubling and then quadrupling
the line — with the same
result, only louder. After a few
more tries we admitted defeat,
and threw the frayed remnants
of our line in the dumpster. As
I heard it told, someone else
did