When I came ashore for good in 1978 I didn't know what to do with my hands. Twenty-two years of somebody telling you what to do every minute, and then nobody does. Joanne gave me about a month and then she said, "Billy, go in the garage." So I went in the garage. I've been in there more or less ever since.

I made my first cribbage board that winter, out of a piece of oak shelf. It is as crooked as a dog's hind leg. The holes wander. The skunk line is in the wrong place. Joanne and I still play on it every night after supper, and I've never made one I like better.

Since then I've made 212 of them. I keep a list in a notebook on the shelf over the drill press: the number, the wood, the kind, and who got it. Here's how they're made and what kinds I make. No pictures yet. My grandson says he'll bring his scanner at Thanksgiving and do some, so check back.

Walnut and oak, nearly all of it scrap. There's a cabinetmaker across the inlet who saves me the ends and offcuts from his jobs in a cardboard box, and every couple of months I go over and trade him a board for whatever's in it. A piece of walnut too short for a cabinet door is just about right for a cribbage board.

Walnut is my favorite. It's dark and it works easy and it looks like money when you oil it. Oak is harder, and it's heavier, and the grain shows every hole you drill, which is good and bad. White oak, mostly. For the skunk line and the trim I use a thin strip of maple when I've got it, because it's light and shows up good against walnut.

1. Cut and plane the blank. Square it up on the table saw, plane it flat, and sand the face smooth before you drill anything. You can't sand it good after, the dust packs into the holes.
2. Lay out the holes. I draw them on paper first, every hole, in groups of five with a little extra space between the groups so you can count by fives at a glance, and the skunk line marked. Then I rubber-cement the paper to the board and punch every hole center through it with an awl.
3. Drill. On the drill press, with a depth stop set so every hole comes out the same. I drill them a little bigger than the pegs so the pegs go in easy and stand up straight. This is the slow part. A two-track board is better than two hundred and forty holes, and if you get one crooked, everybody who ever plays on that board will see it.
4. The skunk line. I cut a thin slot across the track and glue in a strip of maple, then sand it flush.
5. Shape it. Round the edges over with the router, then sand everything by hand, coarse to fine, until it feels like it's been played on for twenty years.
6. Peg drawer. I drill a hole up into the bottom from one end to hold the pegs, and close it with a little brass cover that swings on a screw.
7. Pegs. Brass rod, cut to length and rounded on the bench grinder, and I give each board two colors by dipping one set in paint. Nobody's ever complained about the pegs.
8. Finish. Three coats of oil, rubbed in and wiped off, a day between coats, and a coat of paste wax last. Walnut comes out like chocolate.

I don't sell them. I tried that, one Saturday at a craft fair in 1984, and I spent the whole day talking to people about the Navy and sold one board, and I decided I'd rather give them away. So that's what I do:

• Every grandchild gets a board for their tenth birthday, and a lesson. Four so far. Two of them can beat me.
• The winner of the monthly tournament at the VFW gets a long board. Some men have three or four by now. One fellow has six and I'm thinking about changing the rules.
• Any shipmate who writes and asks gets a boat. It takes a while. I'm behind. You know who you are, and it's coming.
• The rest go wherever they're needed. The VA hospital has eleven of them. The last one I made, number 212, went to a young sailor at the base whose dad was a boat sailor I served with. He'd never played. He has now.

If you'd like to make your own and you've got questions, write me. I'm happy to talk about drill presses all day. Ask Joanne.