Geoff Davis: My Friend In His Creative Prime

I met Geoff Davis in 1987. At the time, he was helping found the Noblesville Preservation Alliance, trying to make a then, indifferent Noblesville, care about its historic architecture. For the 35 years since, he’s doggedly walked his own path, pursuing out-of-the-ordinary interests, delighting and inspiring people like me along the way. 

We sat on that early NPA board together and restored our own Victorian-era houses in the same neighborhood. I knew I loved old homes and restoration, and already knew a lot about carpentry, but Geoff understood the granular details of architecture and historic design and helped me deepen my own knowledge. I’ve learned so much from him over our 35-year friendship. 

 

Together, we salvaged old buildings slated for demolition. Once, we scoured a decades-long-abandoned boarding house, picking decorative hardware, woodwork, light fixtures, and eventually, a staggeringly heavy 1940s refrigerator we slid down a stairway and into my truck.

 

I wrote and published a novel called The Salvage Man, about a man doing what Geoff inspired me to do; save those irreplaceable bits of beauty before they got thrown in a dumpster. I returned the favor by giving him a set of 1890s doors with matching ornate hardware I’d salvaged to be used in an addition he was building to his 1890s home. 

Twenty years ago I was free-lance writing, doing a piece about IPS schools. Thanks to Geoff’s help, I interviewed teachers and students in the school building where he taught. There, I discovered what an amazing teacher he was. Geoff was allowed to teach his elementary students a unique topic of his choosing each semester. He taught them to play the ukulele, creating a school ukulele band. It was an insane success. He and his students would go on to perform at former Indiana Governor O’Bannon’s funeral and in one of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion shows. 

Some years later, when I was going through a divorce and an emotional mess, he took me for a for peaceful walk along White River near the Blatchley Nature Study Club land, identifying birds and trees, giving my troubled heart exactly what it needed at that very moment. He probably has no idea how powerful, healing and inspiring that walk was. I went on my own walk the next day, and the next day. From that day on, I’ve walked in the woods and biked in the countryside to clear my mind and find relief from the chaos of life.

 

For 35 years we commiserated over beers about our difficult relationships with our fathers, woodworking, historic preservation, primitive country blues recordings, and our love/hate relationships with our shared former profession of teaching. 

 

A decade ago, my friend Bill Kenley and I created a literary journal for Noblesville, called the Polk Street Review. It was only natural Geoff would get involved. He set out on the North Forest Canoe Trail, a six-week, 350-mile canoe journey (with his canoe, named Joe) through New York, Vermont, Quebec, and Maine, and chronicled the arduous trip for that year’s edition of Polk Street.

His retirement from teaching in 2018 ushered in his most prolific creative period. He opened his own workshop in downtown Noblesville, teaching woodworking and ukulele building. This soon grew as he added a letterpress print shop that he operates for profit and for teaching that disappearing craft.

He plays uke and trombone in various ad-hoc bands and has built an impressive reputation as a wood carver, best known for his 50 Little Birds series that started with birds but grew into fish, dogs, and sea-going creatures. He’s a leatherworker, making belts and suspenders and is an impressive decorative painter. In the past year he’s given a TedTalk and a documentary was made about him called 50 Little Birds. And now he’s organized Noblesville residents to build a community toboggan to enter in the National Toboggan Championships in Camden Main this February.

There’s just about nothing he doesn’t do. Oh, and did I mention he set up a workbench in his shop window this past Christmas season and entertained shoppers dressed as Santa working in his workshop? Yeah, he did that, too!

Last December, at a bourbon tasting in my garage, Geoff arrived with two wooden cocktail garnish muddlers he’d made on a wood lathe. He pulled them from his pocket and handed one to me and the other to Samir Mohammad, like it was no big deal, “Made these for you guys.” The self-deprecation is very Hoosier–to make something so precious and beautiful and give it so casually. 

 

I love him for that quality. And over the holidays, every time I muddled the orange peel and cherry in my old fashion, I was reminded how lucky I am to call this incredible person my friend.

*Santa photo by Rocky Walls