Bill Williams has been whittling almost all his life; times were hard growing up in the small town of Poolville, Texas, during the Great Depression and Williams says, “We had to whittle; that’s all there was to do.” But he didn’t really get serious about woodcarving until after he retired from his Air Force career and took up RV traveling as an avocation.

Around 1990, Williams started looking for a hobby that was “portable; something cheap and small” that he could carry in his RV and work on at campgrounds. He got a knife and a piece of wood, and started carving. His first work was a stylized female form that he called “The Dancer,” but he soon began concentrating on cowboy caricatures. Much of his work has been given as gifts to friends, but a large collection of blue ribbons attests to his success in competitions at events such as the Texas Wood Carvers Rally and the Rio Grande Valley Wood Carvers Show. He has “sold a few” pieces, but not enough to call his hobby a real business.

A couple of years ago, Williams started a new artistic endeavor. After taking a class in “moose antler art” from a Connecticut gentleman vacationing in McAllen, Texas, he began carving western scenes with dentist drills out of genuine moose antlers. If you’re wondering where he finds moose antlers in the Texas Hill Country, Williams has a very simple answer: E-Bay.

“Moose antlers are very, very hard,” Williams says. I burn up a bunch of dentist drills on one antler.” He carves all the way through the antler, then either leaves it open or applies a black velvet backing to accentuate the natural white of the antler. You can see some examples of his work at the Cowboy Store in Bandera or at the Flightline Café on Hwy 90 in Hondo, where moose antlers, wood carvings and photos of old airplanes make for a unique atmosphere at the local hangout. (“It’s a great place to eat, too!” Williams tells us.)

By the way, it’s not ju ...

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