Lonesome Dovetail

     I made my first dovetail joint nearly fifteen years ago.  It was not cut with a hand saw or even a router.
My first dovetail joint was cut with a CNC machine.
  I was twenty and working at my first professional woodworking job.  At the time I was amazed that a machine could do this with such ease. All I had to do was punch in some numbers and push the wood in place.
   I quickly got excited about the new technology that computer operated woodworking machines could offer. A shop full of them I imagined. They could do everything with ease. Why, I would hardly need to be there at all!
  My excitement was quickly replaced with boredom after I had mastered the tasks of number punching and wood pushing. As a young woodworker my attention quickly went elsewhere.  I began to question whether I wanted to do this craft at all.  If you call what I was doing craft. I suppose if  I had to answer I would not.
   So, I struggled with the dreaded noose of blue collar work for years. I looked to the technology fields. After all that was the future. At least that is what I kept hearing.
  I quickly learned that that was not much different than number punching or wood pushing.
   Eventually I found a more balanced approach.
   I can certainly appreciate technological advances, I have just chosen to not  push the button just because there is one to be pushed.