Please forgive the story if it's a little out of place, but I think it's kind of cool...

My wife was talking with her grandfather (87 years old) on the phone last night. At some point during the conversation she told him about my new hobby. He asked to speak with me.

It seems that his father (my wife's great-grandfather) made split cane rods. He described the equipment his father used, and the wrapper, at least, sounds to be very similar to the one I built. He said that his father tried to teach him how he did it, but since he was a teenager, he was more interested in girls than making fly rods, and never took it up. He was pretty emotional as he talked about it. We talked longer than we've ever talked on the phone before.

Towards the end of the conversation, I told him that my wife picks on me about the "weaving" that I've taken up, and when he got back on the phone with her, he set her straight. ;)

This morning I took a roll of pictures of the wrapper I made as well as the two rods I've completed to send to him. I'm sure I'm not the only one who shares this hobby with past family members, but it was still pretty cool to discover this.