On This Is My Thing, we are continuing our mission to talk with people about the things they do just for themselves – not because it’s their job and not because it’s a responsibility, just because they love to do it. The stuff you do because it’s your thing.
We're continuing our Summer of Ancient Hobbies, a theme that just kind of happened without our planning it, but which we're enjoying anyway. We've recently talked with folks about encaustic painting, the board game Go, and the art of quilting — all practices that date back thousands of years.
This week's episode focuses on whittling, which might be our oldest hobby yet (depending on whether you consider the earliest examples of humans cutting into wood with sharp rocks to be early forms of whittling). We’re talking with Cory Squires, whose own history with whittling dates back to his childhood, when his grandfather handed a bored young Cory a block of wood and a knife.
We’ll talk about his history with whittling and wood carving, the sorts of things he creates now (lots of funny animals and pop culture figures, among other things), which parts of the house he's allowed to whittle in, and what it's all doing for his heart and his brain.
On this page, you can listen to the on-air version of this story, but if you check out the This Is My Thing podcast feed, you’ll find a longer version of this piece (as well as some older pieces you might have missed or might just want to listen to again).
We’ve talked to a lot of other people about their things and those stories will be coming in future weeks. We’re working on stories about fountain pen collecting, tabletop gaming, and more! Stay tuned!
And we want to hear from you about the thing you do just because you love it! You’ll find an online form on the main This Is My Thing page where you can tell us about the thing that brings you joy, calms your mind, or feeds your soul in some way.
