William D. Boykin places a steeple atop a bird house while working inside his wood shop off Stenson Road Saturday morning.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[5/24/04]Don’t ever tell William Duncan Boykin he can’t build something.

“Ain’t such a word as that,” the 77-year-old retired carpenter said in his wood shop off Stenson Road.

“If you got the tools, there’s not a whole lot to it,” he said.

From homes and greenhouses to birdhouses, wishing wells and flowerpots, Boykin can build just about anything.

He hammered his first nail 61 years ago when he took on the task of adding a bathroom onto his childhood home in Delta City, east of U.S. 61 North.

“I was 16 years old and my daddy left it up to me to do,” Boykin said. “Me and the boys cut down a cypress tree and started building the addition.

“I was just a farmer and started piddling around with wood,” Boykin said. “I never went to school for it,” he said.

That “piddling” eventually led Boykin to a job with the U.S. Forestry Service in Stoneville, where he worked as a supervisor and carpenter until his retirement in 1973.

Upon retirement, Boykin moved his family from the paper-flat Delta to the rolling hills of Vicksburg.

“I bought me this mountain here and built my house on it,” he said. The 1,500-square-foot home sits close to his daughter’s and nephew’s homes, which he also built.

These days, Boykin is building houses made from window shutters for his feathered friends.

Birdshouses of all different shapes, colors and sizes.

Boykin and his wife of four years, Ava Boykin, claim he has a photographic memory when it comes to building.

“I can just give him a picture of what I want built, and he can do it,” she said.

Boykin rises before the sun every day of the week and heads out to his wood shop.

“I haven’t used an alarm clock in 40 years,” he said.

He glides at a lightning speed through the sawdust collected on the floor, cutting wood for different projects and occasionally stopping to admire his work.

“I wake up in the middle of the night thinking, what can I start tomorrow?” he said.

Ava Boykin said she has no problem filling her husband’s “to do” list. She helps with the decorations on each project.

“As soon as he makes it, I can take it down to the shop and sell it,” she said.

The two own a business called “Lil Bit” of Everything Sewing Center at 2170 Culkin Road.

“Being able to accomplish something is what he likes,” Ava Boykin said. “He is just like me, when I see something I want to do, I do it,” she said.

“Yeah, but you don’t get as much sawdust down your bosom as I do,” he said, with a laugh.