Paul Bass photo
Fred White Thursday outside the Whalley Wells Fargo.
A retired tool-and-die maker named Fred White kept moving Thursday, hopping on his music-amplified Kent Cruiser two-wheeler to navigate the busy Norton-Whalley intersection.
White was leaving the GE Credit Union and headed to the Wells Fargo branch across the street for some last-minute pre-holiday transactions. His cellphone transmitted a Boney James recording to the Altec speaker White had Velcroed to his handlebars, adding upbeat strains of jazz to the traffic.
“It’s the only way to ride with music,” White said during a conversation on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. “I don’t want to use earplugs — you can’t hear the car.”
White has spent his life figuring out how to make stuff work. “I’m good with tools,” he said. And “I like learning.”
He learned the tool-and-dye trade working on metal presses at Bridgeport’s Bassett Company. He then picked up how to grind blades working on helicopters at Sikorsky.
In retirement, he has taken up wood sculpture. (Examples of his work are pictured above.)
“I started with driftwood,” he said. Now he’s into deadwood. He travels as far as New London (renting a vehicle rather than relying on his Kent Cruiser, of course) to comb woods for nature’s perfect pieces to hone. “I see all these nice things. I had one torso — it went so fast [to finish]. The breast and the waist and the neckline, no head; it was formed by nature.”
White sells some of the pieces through a network he has developed through word of mouth. (Contact him at Newbuttonking@yahoo.com.) He has set up a gallery inside his Norton Street home where visitors view the pieces.
On Christmas he plans to “stay around the house all day in pajamas CashApping” gifts to his nine grandchildren. And he’s reflecting on the season: a “time it is to reflect on love for one another and try to make things better, try to carry it through to the next year.”
Click on the video to watch the conversation with Fred White on the “Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. It begins at the 24-minute mark in the video.
Click here to subscribe to WNHH FM’s “LoveBabz LoveTalk” and here to subscribe to other WNHH programs.
Click here and see below for previous “Word on the Street” episodes and write-ups.
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