WOODWORKER HAS CHRISTMAS SPIRIT

Whether it's because he was born on Dec. 25 or the way he was raised, Paul Kinder is certainly imbued with the Christmas spirit.

The soon-to-be 95-year-old shares many similarities with Santa. Kinder always has a project going in his workshop, he gives away what he makes and he's got that same twinkle in his eye.

"I come to the workshop almost every day," said Kinder, a thin man with a quick smile, as he walked to the wood shop at Chateau Girardeau, where he and his wife, Wanda, live. "If I didn't have this workshop, I don't know what I'd do. I guess I wouldn't do anything. It helps keep me going."

Kinder loves to make furniture. He's made cradles, rocking chairs, cabinets and occasional tables, several of which are in use in the Kinders' one-bedroom apartment.

"But we've given away most of the furniture because we just don't have the room for it," he said.

These days, most of his projects are smaller. Not long ago he cut out the parts for 25 stair step knickknack shelves. This is a about a foot tall wall-hanging that looks like a staircase and holds small decorative items. Like most of the items he makes, Kinder saw the item pictured in a magazine and figured out on his own how to make it.

He alternates work on those with making small clocks in the shape of birdhouses and tea pots; umbrella-shaped key chain holders that could also serve to hold necklaces, suspenders (just about anything, Kinder says); and holders for rolls of paper towels and toilet paper.

He can't possible use all those himself, so they usually become gifts to others.

"I make them, and my wife gives them away," Kinder said.

"We have more than we need, and he's making new things all the time, so we give them away," Wanda Kinder said.

Kinder says he owes his woodworking abilities to his grandfather, who lived in Marquand and who Kinder would often travel to see from his boyhood home in Marble Falls.

"He would tell us if it breaks, you fix it, and if you can't fix it, you have to live without it," Kinder said.

Kinder went from fixing things to building things out of wood. While his career ranged from teaching to working for the state agriculture department to 20 years with the Veterans Administration in St. Louis, he always did woodworking as a hobby.

"People would call me the handy man," he said.

While other men were out golfing or fishing, Kinder was at his lathe or skill saw, creating objects out of wood.

His wife thinks constantly having a project to work on is the key to her husband's longevity.

This is the second marriage for Wanda and Paul. They knew each other growing up in Marble Hill, and both were widowed when he paid her a visit when she lived in Kansas City in the early '80s.

"He took me to brunch and buttered my toast, and I decided to marry him," Wanda said. They wed in 1981.

In 1995, they moved to Chateau Girardeau, where, Wanda says, they are "living the good life."

Kinder said the wood shop at the retirement apartments is one reason he's stayed.

"When you come to the shop, you feel like you are with family," he said, noting that the woodworkers who use the shop all help and look after one another.

Mrs. Kinder said the shop keeps her husband busy, which keeps him happy. It also brings some happiness to those who enjoy the benefits of Kinder's labors.

"We never sell things," said Mrs. Kinder, who herself makes throws for nursing home residents. "Giving things away is his joy and mine."