"I'm a combat veteran. 322 straight days," says renowned craftsman and unlikely TV star Eric Hollenbeck. Through his workshop, the Blue Ox Millworks in Eureka, he's found ways to heal himself while helping other veterans. "Life has a way of making things work, and we have built something that's an asset to the community out of it."
In this episode of Talk Humboldt with Keith and Tom, Hollenbeck shares how the Blue Ox began, what it's like working with veterans, and how he handles his newfound fame.
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Eric Hollenbeck:
So this is the only known photograph in the entire world of the Lincoln hearse. That's it. And the only dimension that we knew was the wheel length…
Tom Jackson:
Because you can scale it.
Eric Hollenbeck:
…Is a diameter of the rear wheel that was here. What we did was, we got contacted by the city of Springfield. [They asked] “Can you build perfect reproduction of the Lincoln hearse for the 150th reenactment that we're going to do the burial?”
I said, “If we can start a veterans program, we will do it. Yeah.”
Tom Jackson:
And this, of course, is from the only photo you were tasked to do this amazing work, and here we have it.
Eric Hollenbeck:
We had 23 veterans total. And, man, they became a unit at the end. Our payment has to be that you send all of these veterans back to Springfield, and they all got to be honored in front of 150,000 people as the grass.
Keith Flamer:
And you built this thing.
Eric Hollenbeck:
That was the biggest healing that could happen. I'm a combat veteran.
322 days straight, under combat, 101st Airborne, Tet Offensive. And I come back [home], and then they served us dinner and we had this big room - all four of us there - and they served the steak dinners.
And this lieutenant comes up and he's going, “You guys, you made it home, how wonderful.” He reaches down and he pulls out a rifle and he says, “I just want to tell you this. Here now is a deer rifle, this hunts game.” He pulls out a knife like we're using on our steaks. “This here is a knife. It's a steak knife. This cuts steak, not people”. And then he says, “I'm going to tell you, you guys will use alcohol, drugs or work to run away from the memories. But I guarantee you, you will come to grips with those.”
You've heard the term, ‘What don't kill you makes you stronger’. What's it really mean? You know, that's why I think I can work with these veterans so well. I've been there. I've walked a mile in them boots.
Tom Jackson:
Can you talk just a little bit about what the Blue Box was in your mind and what it is today?
Eric Hollenbeck:
It's an octopus with too many arms going in too many directions. We started as a logging company, salvage logging. We started this company, Viviana and I, with a $300 bank loan. And we log dead and diseased trees. And we did that for three and a half years. And in the meantime, we were renting this building for $50 a month.
Eric Hollenbeck:
Life has a way of making things work. And we have built something that's an asset to the community out of it.
Keith Flamer:
Eric As we took the tour, we had the opportunity of seeing your old 101st Airborne uniform. And is that why you have so many vets working with you as apprentices?
Eric Hollenbeck:
Yes, but it's also helping myself recover. I was 19 years old. I was a little kid and I was the radioman. I was the prime target for my entire tour there. And nobody wanted to talk to me. Nobody wanted to get close to me. At 19, I thought they didn't like me. I thought that was what it was, that there was something wrong with me.
You know, a high school dropout. As a kid you can't put together these things because you don't have the background. And that's what I can pass on to the vets today. Normal people don't have a perspective that, you don't know where you're going to sleep tonight.
Tom Jackson:
Eric, If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. You said that to us while we were walking around in so many words. You said it doesn't exactly mean what it says. It has a deeper meaning.
Eric Hollenbeck:
Or don't kill you makes you stronger. What does that really mean? Physically stronger. And I suppose there's some of that. Mentally stronger. There's probably even some of that in there. But I think what it does … you can empathize. You didn't know I knew such a big word. [Laughter] You could empathize with the person you're talking with. I've been there, my friend. I get it. And that's a connection that a lot makes in a meaningful conversation.
Keith Flamer:
In this short time we have. As we were driving up here and walking around. We see a lot of people coming to see you from out of the area. Do you have a lot of people that just come to take a picture with you? Why do they come?
Eric Hollenbeck:
I mean, we've been open for tours for, I don't know, 30 years now. We've been in business for 50. But with the television show The Craftsman, now we're getting people coming from all over… I was going to say, the country, they're coming from other countries. And it was really, really hard for me to take a picture with them at first.
Keith Flamer:
Why is that?
Eric Hollenbeck:
Because I'm just Eric. And then it dawned on me, “Idiot”, these people are driving a long way. You are not going to stumble into Eureka. That ain't going to happen. You have to want to get here. So get over here, friend. It still goes against my grain. But I don't. I do it because it's important to them. And they've come a long way, so I just got to get over it.
Tom Jackson:
We're at the Blue Ox with
Eric Hollenbeck:
Thank you.
Keith Flamer:
Thank you very much, sir. We've learned so much today.
