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Chuck Lakin says that \u201cif it\u2019s not work, it\u2019s the right job.\u201d Throughout his time in Waterville, he has lived by this motto. Much of what he has done and still does would certainly be considered work by some. He\u2019s done a lot\u2014educated, wood-worked, mended books, and so much more. But for Lakin, none of that is work. It\u2019s fun, it\u2019s play, it\u2019s things he\u2019s passionate about and excited to do every day.<\/p>\n
Lakin made his living working as a reference librarian at Colby College. His job was \u201costensibly\u2026 to answer questions; but in reality [his] job was to teach people how to use a library.\u201d For some, it would be easy to view a job like this as nothing more than a means to put food on the table and a roof over his head. But Lakin loved his job; he called it \u201cthe perfect job for me.\u201d And though some of the job was dedicated to answering questions\u2014which he \u201creally enjoyed\u201d\u2014and teaching people how to use the library, much of his job was up to him, because, as he explained, \u201cNobody really told me what my job was, so I basically got to make it up.\u201d Rather than taking that freedom for himself, spending his time in his undescribed job reading or napping, Lakin was proactive. He wandered the library looking for anything that \u201cneeded attention.\u201d He found professors and asked them what they needed help with. He learned to repair books. None of this was in his job description; he just did it. And he loved it. Lakin insisted that \u201cit was more like play than work. I always felt like I was overpaid.\u201d Lakin is now retired, but his work at the library certainly enriched the lives of the decades-worth of students and professors he helped, as well as himself. He\u2019s retired, but he repairs books to this day.<\/p>\n
Chuck Lakin\u2019s time in retirement has been by no means idle. On top of book mending, he spends much of his time woodworking, a hobby he has enjoyed for decades. His interest in woodworking started when he wanted to frame a wedding gift he had made for friends. It began simply; in his words, \u201cMy dad had a table saw and piece of walnut and I said, \u2018I can figure this out.\u2019\u201d From that moment on, Lakin was in love with woodworking. For a time, he made anything his friends wanted for free, just as practice. And of all those practice projects, as far as he is aware, \u201cthere\u2019s only one that isn\u2019t still around.\u201d Today, with years of experience behind him, Lakin volunteers his woodworking for countless organizations\u2014Waterville Main Street, Waterville Creates!, Hospice Volunteers of the Waterville Area, and the Public Library, just to name a few. Lakin says he actually prefers volunteering to selling his work because he doesn\u2019t like to worry about money. He says volunteering \u201cmakes it that much more fun.\u201d Not only does he volunteer his woodworking for others, but he also uses it for himself. Lakin designed his entire house and built it by hand.<\/p>\n
If he had kept his time to nothing but woodworking, Lakin would have already led a fulfilling retirement. But he has also dedicated a great deal of time to educating families on something of great importance to him. In 1979, Lakin\u2019s father passed away. He stayed with his father at home for almost six weeks while he was dying, and on the day of his death, his father was in his own bed with his wife and four kids. Lakin appreciated how personal the experience of his father\u2019s passing had been, but everything from that point on\u2014the burial and the funeral\u2014was no longer personal at all. The funeral director handled everything quickly and impersonally, leaving Lakin wishing he could have done more. So, decades later, when he read a pamphlet on home funerals, he decided to advocate for the cause. With a home funeral, a family can prepare everything by themselves and have the funeral in their own home, something Lakin strongly supports. He presents at libraries, hospices, etc. in the hopes of educating people on all of their options, as well as simply planning ahead, and having difficult conversations about death and what each family member wants. Lakin also combines his passions for informing about home funerals and woodworking through making coffins that can double as bookshelves. They can be bought by the people who will one day use them\u2014unrecognizable as coffins unless pointed out. Creating coffins that can be used as bookshelves is one of countless ways Lakin stays in touch with what he loves\u2014be it woodworking or books or promoting awareness and preparedness for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chuck Lakin says that \u201cif it\u2019s not work, it\u2019s the right job.\u201d Throughout his time in Waterville, he has lived by this motto. Much of what he has done and still does would certainly be considered work by some. He\u2019s done a lot\u2014educated, wood-worked, mended books, and so much more. But for Lakin, none of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7860,"featured_media":0,"parent":8,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78\/revisions\/146"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/watervilleprofiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}