Howard B. Schechter has, so far, only written two aphorisms. That’s one of the smallest oeuvres of any aphorist, ever. “I lived in a log cabin in upstate New York for two years,” he says, “with a fireplace for heat, a spring house, outhouse, and small barn for our oxen and cows. It was my first job out of college and set a lifelong interest in gardening, blacksmithing, early American everything, and of course, tools. We lived by our edges: scythes for harvesting, saws for woodcutting, butcher knives, axes, chisels, and dozens of other tools. If it wasn’t sharp, you worked harder and less productively.” From this experience comes:

It’s easier to keep your knife sharp than it is to sharpen your knife.

Mr. Schechter currently makes cutlery and ornamental iron in his personal coal forge and teaches in a Ph.D. program at an online university. After watching the chaos at the Dome in New Orleans after Katrina, he wrote:

The veneer of civilization is three meals thick.

Mr. Schechter’s two sayings are so apt that I can only hope he keeps writing…

This just in (Dec. 10, 2007). Now there are three…

Most make time to be ill, few take time to be well.