Bill is a woodworker. Actually he is a woodturner, mainly. His works are beautiful. He lives in Bertram.

It’s an amazing story of how we met. Madeline has a cousin in Houston that owns a bookstore that specializes in Murder Mysteries. In fact I think that’s all they carry. The name of the store is Murder by the Book. I think it’s been there for many years.

This younger cousin worked there, then bought it after a time and married the bookstore manager. I may have the sequence of events out of order, but that’s the story for the most part. Then husband died suddenly. Upon hearing this, I googled the names and found a link to the store website.

The website made mention of different authors that were closely connected and friends of the store. I recognized one as an author Madeline had taken an interest in. Coincidently, the author and her husband live here in Bertram, where we have spent the past 25 years of our life.

I became curious about this author so found her website and it mentioned that her husband was also an accomplished author, but was also woodturner.

So I connected up to his website to see his woodwork and it said he works primarily with native wood for this area.

Since I also enjoy woodworking and I love using native wood from this area I thought, dang we have something in common.

I have the equipment to do woodturning but haven’t perfected that talent and may never. I’m balancing a lot of balls in the air already.

I sent him an email telling him about my woodworking hobby and invited him over to see my shop and the sawmill where I cut much of the wood I use. So now after a few years, Bill and I have spent many hours producing wood that we can both use. Out of our love of wood we have forged a neighborly friendship. A friendship that I treasure.

As a side benefit I have gotten to know his wife, Susan. She has written dozens of books over the years and she and Bill have co-authored books as well.

If you would like to check out her very fine line of literary works, google Susan Whittig Albert. While your at it you can see a lot of his very fine works by linking over to his site.

A bowl Bill gave Madeline.