The Jack & Les Blog Fest: Summer

For those of you who know me well, you know that I was raised on sports, politics, and mixed cereal. My siblings and I were very well taken care of in our youth, but with an attorney for a dad and a homemaker for a mom, let's just say we never learned how to build things, repair things, or perform tasks under the hood of a car. Of course, we learned other things with as much if not more value (I can tell you the name of every president and state capital while juggling fruit), but it has hurt my standing with the bonafide country boys of the Carolinas when they all start swapping stories of replacing alternators or framing a house, and I'm standing there like a fool concealing the fact that the only tools I own came from IKEA.

If this looks familiar, then you know my pain.

My oldest brother Wade has probably done more than any of us to self-correct our overly white-collared upbringing. A few years ago he bought some land at the south end of Cache Valley and started to farm it. Just like that, he went from being a business man to Farmer Joe (actually, he kept doing the businessman thing during the day, then farmed by night, just like Batman). He went from knowing nothing about farming to tilling his own ground, raising his own goats, and castrating his own pigs. Nothing says "I'm a man" like slicing off a pig's genitalia, then living to tell about it.

I wasn't ready for livestock castration (nor will I be in this lifetime), so I recently endeavored to do something that would callous my hands and require the use of highly dangerous power tools (using a tool that has enough torque to take off your left hand really lets people know you mean business) to bolster my blue-collar credentials. And so, I decided to build a Cornhole set.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Cornhole it's a very popular sport down here in the South. You find it being played at barbecues, tailgate parties, and on the infield of a NASCAR race. It's kind of like horseshoes, but without the need of a sandpit, stakes, or a sledgehammer. You can buy a set online, but building was easy and fun. Here's how you do it, in the most technical terms I can summon:

1. Buy a bunch of stuff

You'll need wood, and lots of it. I recommend purchasing it from a lumberyard or a home improvement store as opposed to chopping down a nearby tree, but whatever works for you. You'll also want to pick up some nails, screws, a hammer, and several thick gauze bandages.

Avoid if possible.

2. Assemble the stuff

Cut the wood to size using a table saw, mitre saw, or extremely gritty sandpaper. To assemble, put screws in the wood and connect the wood. While Elmer's glue would probably be fine, these screws will ensure a stronger bond and a longer life for your cornhole boards.

3. Make the stuff look cool

Using primer, paint, and polyurethane, decorate your cornhole boards to your liking. Favorite sports teams are very common, but as you can see from the example below, there's plenty of room for creativity (fresh tip: choosing a red color scheme for your boards is a great way to help hide those unsightly blood stains!)