Most mornings, you'll find Harry Ameredes up with the sun and working diligently on pen and ink illustrations in his West Virginia Home. The drawings of canes and pipes (or bastouni and tsibouki, as this 73-year-old Greek-American calls them) presented here are only a small fraction of the thousands of original drawings that Harry has completed over the years.

An artist at heart, Harry discovered his natural talent for drawing while in high school. With the encouragement of Robert Ayworth, his high school art teacher, Harry entered some of his best drawings in a national scholastic art contest. To his delight, his work won first and second place honors.

Harry's drawing took a back seat during World War II. His Greek heritage and his ability to speak Greek made him a perfect candidate for the Office of Strategic Services. Along with other Americans who had strong ethnic ties, Harry found himself parachuting or riding submarines into occupied and threatened territories to work with the underground movement opposing Hitler.

Now retired from the service and the local steel mill, Harry uses much of his free time to draw, work out at the gym, and carve. He finds that carving, a skill he developed 25 years ago, is a natural extension of his drawing. Realizing his ideas for canes and pipes in wood is quite a thrill. Of course, Harry is the first to admit that he has more drawings than he could ever complete in wood.