What Babe Built

Oct 31, 2013 | People

[title subtitle=”story: Marla Cantrell | images: Mark Mundorff”][/title]

The Razorbacks are playing today and all of Fayetteville, Arkansas is dressed in red. At the Farmers’ Market on the town square, some have hogs painted on their faces, a few are wearing hog snouts held in place by elastic bands, and Marilyn Pennington is wearing her hog earrings. She and her husband Babe and their son Randy are manning their booth. Here, they sell cutting boards and utensils made from Arkansas hardwoods that Randy finds mostly on his friend’s 1,000 acres. Once the trees have been harvested, they’re taken to a nearby mill, and then on to the Pennington’s shop in Rogers, where they begin their work.

One of the top sellers today is the board shaped like the state of Arkansas. A couple comes by and snaps several photos on their phone. In a few minutes they return to make a purchase. By ten in the morning a line has formed, filled with shoppers who couldn’t resist these handmade products.

Marilyn laughs as she talks to the customers. Randy is busy keeping a tally of what’s selling. And then there’s Babe, who’s sitting in a lawn chair, his plaid newsboy cap pulled down low against the persistent wind.

At eighty, this business is one of the things that keeps Babe excited about life. The first piece he created was a small oval bread board he made in his backyard shop and then took inside to show Marilyn. He was already in the construction business when this happened, and he was a gifted cabinet maker. The board, pieced together with scraps from his latest job, appealed to Marilyn. And then she used it. It worked beautifully, the wood giving way just enough, the knives clicking along as she cut through fresh baked bread. She washed it gently, then used cooking oil to keep it in top condition.

Soon, Babe was making more boards than his family and friends could use. He’d spend hours in his shop, planing down the wood, gluing it together, sanding it smooth.

Before long, Marilyn and Randy were helping him, working in the shop and helping Babe sell at local arts and crafts fairs. Since that time, they’ve sold more than they can easily track. “A long time ago we were at a craft show at the Jones Center and a lady bought thirty bread boards, and we were just astounded,” Marilyn says. “That was the first big sale I remember. We now sell to the Capitol Gift Shop in Little Rock, and the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma carries our board shaped like Oklahoma.

“We’ve made boards shaped like states all over the country, and we’ve made boards that look like England and Germany, and several other foreign countries. We’ll ship them wherever people want them. I’ve had people who came through from Switzerland buy our boards, and we had a guy and his wife from Denmark, who were going to school at the University of Arkansas, who bought some to take home with them. I guess that’s the farthest we’ve had them go.”

The wood is gorgeous: black walnut, oak, sassafras, Box Elder, ash, hickory, pecan, cherry. Many are made with multiple kinds of wood, and the contrast is striking. Randy is in charge of finding the trees, cutting them down, and getting them to the sawmill. “I get wood everywhere I can,” Randy says. “I have my friend’s place with a 1,000 acres, but I’ll also stop if I see somebody cutting down a tree, and I’ll ask them what they’re going to do with the logs. And people know I buy wood, so I get calls.”

The wood has to dry for a year or two before it’s ready to use. The boards are cut into even strips, glued together into sheets, and then run through a planer to make sure they’re even. After that, they’re sanded. Babe and Marilyn decide what shapes they’ll become: an outline of a state, a rectangle, square, or oval. They trace the pattern on the wood and cut them with a band saw. They sand a second time, brand them with their logo and phone number, then Marilyn uses olive oil to condition them. The process takes about three weeks.

“I was a little hesitant the first few times I used the band saw, but Babe really worked with me,” Marilyn says. “He gave me little things to do, and the more I did them the less afraid I was. The only thing that scared me was when the blade would break and it made a loud noise. But I’ve never once wanted to quit,” Marilyn says. “Because I just love it. I love it. I love taking the boards before anything’s on them. They don’t look like this. The minute the oil hits them, everything changes. And you sit there and look at it and you have to decide which side you want to be the right side.”

Babe is smiling while Marilyn talks. “I work all day,” he says, “from the time I get up until six or seven at night. I had an accident with a heater filled with propane that caught fire and burned my leg to the bone, so I was out until a few months ago. I was moving it and accidently kicked it and the fire started.” Babe shakes his head. “That was awful. Had to fly me from Rogers to the Springfield burn unit. I was there from January to April. Marilyn and Randy had to do everything. I hated that. I like to work. People ask me what else I do besides work. And I don’t know. There’s nothing else I want to do.”

Just then a customer appears who has a question for Babe. “We do all of this ourselves,” he says to a man holding two similar boards. “You won’t find any two alike,” Babe adds, and the man buys both.

Randy points to a rectangular board, eleven by six inches, made of Box Elder. On each end is a handle made from cabinet pulls. The board contains several small squares of wood that have been turned so the end grain is exposed. In some pieces, swirls of scarlet swim against the pale wood. “The red is a toxin in the tree, caused by the Box Elder beetle,” Randy says. “The tree puts off a toxin – it’s not toxic to you or me – and that only happens in female tree. It grows in the bottoms, close to water. In the dead of winter you can tell a Box Elder real easy; the twigs on the tree will be bright green when all the other trees are brown.”

This is one of the perks of the job. Randy can identify any tree in Arkansas, and he’s brimming with facts most of us will never know. Marilyn pats him on the shoulder. “He knows a lot,” she says. And then Babe adds. “He does, and we all do quality work. We’re proud of it. We do what we love.”

The wind has picked up, and leaves skitter across the square. Babe puts a hand on his newsboy cap. The three turn back to their customers, happy to see their handiwork leave this place and end up in kitchens as far away as Denmark. It is astounding that the Penningtons have been this successful. They don’t have a website, they don’t market, but still the sales come. They rely on places like the Fayetteville Farmers’ Market, and phone calls, to keep them afloat. It is more than enough. Babe is not surprised. Create something well made, put your heart into it, and good things follow. “These cutting boards will last a lifetime if you treat them right,” he says. “But that won’t keep me from selling you two,” he says, and now he’s beaming, here amid his handiwork and the people he loves best.

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See the Penningtons’ products at the Fayetteville Farmers’ Market at 101 W. Mountain Street on Saturdays from 7-2, through November 23. If you miss them this month, they’ll be back in the spring.

To place orders anytime, call Babe and Marilyn at 479.631.7427 or Randy at 479.531.8398.

Do South Magazine

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