George Cole and wife Milly. (Daily Press photo by Laura Mead)

ESCANABA — Although Escanaba resident George Cole has been retired since 2006, he has not stopped working on projects or pursuing academic interests.

“I’ve always got projects I’m working on. I’m going to make an island, a kitchen island,” Cole said while tinkering around in his woodworking shop on a rainy morning in April “One of my hobbies is to work with all different kinds of lumber.”

Cole is also in the process of assembling a small dresser table and making a rocking chair.

“I never sell anything. I give them away to people,” he said. “I pretty much built all my daughters furniture.”

He has also made wooden bowls, duck decoys, trestle tables, chests, picnic tables and is working on blue jay houses and bee boxes.

Cole said he uses all different kinds of soft and hard woods, including white birch, Cedar, Pine, Oak, black walnut and cherry to name a few.

“He made our daughter a trestle table.