THE SPIRIT OF THE BLADE
“Big” Joe made his first trip to Kentucky in June 2003, primarily for the purpose of conducting an investigation. After watching his tools depart from Pittsburgh each June for 15 years (with his son “Little”Joe), “Big” Joe determined to make the trip himself to find out what his tools had been up to all those years. (He could have asked his son, but the rest of us were happy that Joe elected the trip “option”.)
“Big” Joe accepted his first Kentucky assignment, on a warm and humid June Monday morning. He volunteered to remove the collapsed floor in a room of a Kentucky home badly in need of repair. Now by this time, after many years of traveling to Kentucky, “Little” Joe had begun to accumulate his own collection of tools. Turnabout being fair play, and “Big” Joe not being one to let opportunity pass him by, “Big” Joe called upon “Little” Joe’s trusty 7¼- inch, one-horsepower, worm-drive circular saw and bent to the task. He plugged in the electrical cord and gave the trigger a short pull, testing the saw in preparation for the work ahead. Then he set his stance, and lined up the saw for the first of many cuts that day. He pulled and held the trigger. The saw motor was deafening. Then “Big” Joe skillfully guided the saw as the blade embedded itself in the oak flooring. The saw emitted the competent, confident noise, between a scream and a growl, of a power tool not yet tested to its limits. While “Big” Joe sweated a lot (and puffed a little),sawdust flew and the room was occasionally illuminated by the photo flash of sparks that charged the air as the blade cut through flooring nails.
Ah yes, the Blade. Now there’s the real story. We all know the story about every chain having a weak link. Well unfortunately, “Little” Joe had apparently economized when selecting the blade for this magnificent saw. But what the blade lacked in brawn, it more than made up for with heart. It was kind of … The Little Blade That Could… All through the day, that blade filled the room with its cacophonous screaming and growling. For cut after cut, it threw sawdust; it cut nails, it sparked, and it flashed. Thinking back, we could almost hear the blade screaming and growling, “Bring it on! Give me more! Don’t slow down! Let’s help these people!!”
Well, “Big” Joe must have heard, because he kept that saw and the little blade going all day long. Finally,the floor was reduced to manageable pieces and a pile of sawdust, so “Big” Joe gave the saw and the blade a break. He checked the saw and blade for the first time that day. The saw was in good shape,having barely been tested, but the blade … well, the blade was, simply put, all used up. It was scarred and scorched, and all the teeth were chipped and dull from chewing through hard wood and nails all day. In fact, the saw’s teeth were actually bent backward from the strain of keeping up with the pace set by “Big”Joe. As the group’s veterans talked about the blade later, nobody could remember a circular saw blade that looked more worn out than that little blade did after its Herculean day. But the blade was warm; warm with the satisfaction of completing a hard job and doing it to the best of its ability.
Thus, the Spirit of the Blade was born. Though not necessarily the brawniest or the most skilled blade on the trip, this blade was nevertheless willing to do its very best to apply the limits of its capabilities toward helping to improve the lives of people in need.
In keeping with the example set by the blade, the Spirit of the Blade Award is made to the (non-leader) individual on the annual Project H.O.P.E. trip to Appalachia who, in the collective wisdom of the leaders making the trip, most closely exemplifies the Spirit of the Blade.
The recipient is awarded the plaque and certificate signifying his or her selection as the (non-leader) person on the trip who has most unselfishly expended the limits of his or her talents and energy in pursuit of the Project H.O.P.E. mission of helping the poorest of the poor.
The recipient is privileged to retain the plaque for a period of eleven months. The plaque must be returned to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Appalachia Project Hope group by June 1 of the calendar year following award so that the tradition of the Spirit of the Blade may continue to be honored annually at the conclusion of each Project HOPE trip to Appalachia.
