Bob: I had to smile, reading about the stair jig your Father made. In your Father and many of our Father's generations, you made something if you needed it, rather than going to a store to buy it. My Father devised an ingenious trap for catching the rabbits and squirrels in our garden. It was made completely out of scrap wood and wire... a large box with a sliding door that dropped when they hit a trip wire. My sons were fascinated by it and wanted me to build one just like it (with no possible use for it, other than as a base for a coffee table.) My Father was a serious small game hunter, and I must have eaten a thousand rabbits growing up. And squirrel too. But, for some inexplicable reason, he was very tender-hearted about the rabbits and squirrels that he trapped in our garden. He'd take them out into the country, give them a stern lecture about never coming back, and then release them. I never did figure out a way to bring the box trap back with me on the airplane, so I don't know if anyone in the family kept it.

Jerry