ALMetro360 June 19

worked his way to a stopping point in Mont- gomery. Petranka is the founder and managing mem- ber of the Petranka Contracting Co., special- izing in electrical work. Despite his position as head of his company, he has clear ideas about the value of manual labor. “Everybody needs to learn how to work with their hands. By the time you finish high school you should have some kind of trade or skill, so you can get an entry level job and feed yourself. “Germany has a wonderful apprenticeship training program throughout the whole coun- try, which operates efficiently because they ac- cept the fact that not everyone needs college, but every society needs trained people who can repair the roof.” Petranka feels strongly that if our technology should suddenly shut down for whatever rea- son, it’s those who know how to farm and fish who will survive. “I love to teach, so that’s why I’m educating my grandson in survival arts,” Petranka said. “He now knows how to garden and fish, and next week we’ll begin to shoot. And every Monday afternoon at 4 o’clock he comes with four or five of his classmates and they spend hours learning to be blacksmiths because boys are fascinated by fire. And if you’re working with metal, you need lots of it. So far, their artwork consists of iron snowflakes and turkey callers, but now they’re ready to move on.” Petranka lives in Old Cloverdale and is known in the neighborhood not just for black- smithing, but for his beautiful wood creations. His collection of salad bowls is worthy of a museum. Most of the bowls are not only different in shape and size but each one is of different wood, and therefore of different grain and color. “I make these bowls sometimes by carving the wood but often I work with an adze. It’s a very old tool — razor sharp and with a handle — probably invented by the Vikings for gouging out big trees,” he said. “That’s how they made those incredi- ble sailing ships, which crossed the north At- lantic and discovered Greenland and Iceland five hundred years before Columbus.” On Wednesday afternoons you will see sev- 24 AL/ Metro 360 www.almetro360.com