"Up close, amid the confusion of broken and standing stones, [Stonehenge] still seems smaller than its reputation, notwithstanding the obvious feat represented by the erection of the famous sarsen stones; the largest weighs as much as 50 tons. Unique today, Stonehenge was probably unique in its own time, some 4,500 years ago -- a stone monument modeled on timber precedents. Indeed, its massive lintels are bound to their uprights by mortise-and-tenon joints, taken straight from carpentry, an eloquent indication of just how radically new this hybrid monument must have been."

How cool is that! A timeless piece of history and mystery stands for eons and epochs with a carpenter's trick.

Maybe I'm drinking too much Kool-Aid here at Home Improvement Headquarters, but I'm a little connected to the coolness. Indeed, one of my upcoming projects is a timber-pergola where a mortise-and-tenon type union would work great to hold the timbers together.

The timberframes of one of America's best and brightest builders -- Tedd Benson -- rely daily on the M&T joint as do the furniture and boat projects of another gifted worker of wood -- www.BillThomasWoodWorking.com.

My point is that whether you feel connected to a long, proud, and hard-earned tradition -- or not -- I feel ours is a noble craft and being reminded of that is energizing to me. I don't always feel noble (like when running clothesline-thick beads of Phenoseal on aluminum window jamb caps in a window replacement project -- www.Simonton.com -- in 100 + degree heat no less) but I look at the majesty of something like Stonehenge then look at how hard I work to build modern homes as well as I can and I imagine a craftsman's hands working the stones, laying out, hauling them into place -- all in an effort to leave the world a better place than they found it.

And isn't that the point? Should I have myself checked-in to the looney-bin?