Paul Zirjacks runs his finger along the freshly sanded checkerboard.
He winces a little.
After hours of meticulously cutting, gluing and finally sanding the surface of his latest woodworking project, Zirjacks still isn’t satisfied.
“Who wants to move pieces that go bumpity-bump?” he said.
A visitor compliments him on the piece, and his craftsmanship, pointing out any such “bumpity-bumps” were long ago eliminated.
“I’m glad you think so,” he replies. “When I look at it, I see flaws. I don’t like flaws.”
Zirjacks posits his German heritage leads to an unrealistic pursuit of perfection.
He’ll spend hours, even days, on projects that he admits should take a fraction of the time.
“Being a German, I’m a perfectionist,” he said. “And perfect is the opposite of good.”
Oh, and there’s one other reason Zirjacks is rarely satisfied with his own workmanship.
“I make a lot of mistakes,” he laughs.
ZIRJACKS, 86, continually finds ways to fill his spare time to keep his body and mind focused.
He’s a regular attendee at Iola City Council and Allen County Commission meetings and remains as civically engaged as whippersnappers half his age.
He’s a voracious reader, with shelves filled with World War II history books. “Every book in my house I’ve read,” he says proudly. “A few I’ve read many times.”
And, when the mood is right, he’ll tinker in his garage/woodshop for hours on end.
A handful of projects — including the checkerboard — still are not complete.
“I’ve got a couple of unfinished tables,” Zirjacks said.
And a recently assembled bookshelf — made from wood Zirjacks acquired when he disassembled a discarded table — will soon be emptied and taken apart so he can make it shorter.
“It looks too tall for something that wide,” he said, “so I’m gonna shave about an inch and a half from the bottom.”
ZIRJACKS figures he inherited his love of woodworking from his father, Martin, who had a saw mill in Missouri until it went bankrupt in 1929, during the onset of the Great Depression.
“I don’t know if he ever fully recovered from that,” he said.
The elder Zirjacks’s pursuit of a job eventually took him to Humboldt, where he found work at Monarch Cement. Paul was born not long after.
Evidence of his father’s workmanship sits prominently in Zirjacks’ living room, a table he made 1927.
“It’s made entirely of cherry,” Zirjacks said. “That was his favorite wood.”
Zirjacks’s home has other homemade furniture, including a small table he made in high school.
“I think everyone in class made one,” he chuckled.
FAST FORWARD a generation. Following an extensive military career, he retired in 1988 and settled with wife Judy and sons in Iola.
One of the first purchases for his garage was a Craftsman table saw, which he still uses on a regular basis.
His woodshop also has a number of shelves filled with what appear to be loose scraps of wood of varying shapes, sizes, and species.
He rarely, if ever, uses new wood for his projects.
Instead, Zirjacks keeps his eyes peeled for discarded tables or bits of discarded lumber.
One neighbor was replacing wood countertops with granite, and offered the wood to Zirjacks.
He gladly accepted.
There are several benefits. Older wood tends to be sturdier, a byproduct having been cured lumber when first cut. “This stuff will last forever — unless it gets eaten up by termites,” he said.
There’s also the romanticism of working with materials that have existed for generations.
Oh, and there’s an economic benefit, too.
“New wood is expensive,” Zirjacks said.
HE TYPICALLY cuts the wood down into shim-sized slats, then glues them together to make larger pieces, suitable for tables, shelves or whatever fits his fancy.
“We’ve got plywood here, dimension lumber down here,” he points. “I’ve got my bits and pieces. I’ll save everything. I find I can use everything. I just love old lumber like this. I love this stuff.”
A wood dowel will soon be cut down into smaller disc-sized pieces for his checkerboard.
He has a piece of walnut that will be used for the dark checkers.
Any chance he’ll make up some chess pieces?
“Oh, no,” he laughs. “That requires carving, and I’m no carver. I cut things with saws. I’m a straight line worker.”
His projects also carry another similarity.
While others might sketch out plans to figure out dimensions and what not, Zirjacks — even with his meticulous pursuit of perfection — is more of a “go by the seat of my pants” kind of artist.
“I invent things as I go along,” he said. “This looks right. This doesn’t. I just go by what looks right.”
ZIRJACKS thinks — hopes — he’s about finished with his checkerboard.
Why a checkerboard? Is he an avid player?
Not really. He’s not even sure if he’ll play with this one or just leave it as a conversation piece.
“I don’t know why I decided to make this,” he admits. “Maybe I was cutting up a piece and thought it would look good. I’m constantly looking for ideas.”
And he’s always on the lookout — a wood-seeking vigilante — eager to save pieces of lumber destined for the trash heap.
“Where one person sees trash, I see source material,” Zirjacks said. “It may look like trash, but it’s magic to me.”
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