I wrote recently of the humbling experience of shopping for wiper blades at Lordco. If you didn't read the other post, it basically came down to being relatively smart but not knowing how to do much of anything. That's where I am now, but it wasn't always this way. In fact, I could have turned out to be a pretty good guy to have around in the zombie apocalypse, but life had other plans.
I come from handy stock. My dad, and it seems all the men before him, knew what they were doing with a toolbox. My dad apprenticed early on and did all kinds of construction work in his early years. He worked on huge infrastructure projects, installing major machinery and, along the way, picking up a bunch of different skills. Once he had a family, he left behind the vagaries of construction and the life of work camps in the bush for a steady office job.
That didn't stop him from doing physical work, though. My parents bought a major fixer-upper when I was very young. My dad fixed dry wall, painted, cleared pipes, and repaired wiring before we moved in. The weekends of my childhood were filled with my dad working on the house to make it better. He turned our unfinished basement into the second living room (but the one we actually used as opposed to the one upstairs). He poured cement to fix the cracks in the masonry and the paving around the house. He installed insulation in the walls and ceiling and added Tudor-like touches to the eaves of the house. He planted trees, fixed fences, and even managed to put up a basketball hoop for me.
Somehow he even found time to help other people do work on their houses. Friends and neighbours always knew my dad could and would help. Trips to my grandmother's cottage were essentially work trips for my dad as he fixed everything that broke over the winter (which seemed to be a stunning amount of things). While others saw the cottage as a way to get away from it all and relax, my dad knew it would be a lot of work. Loving my grandmother (my mum's mum) as he did, I don't think he minded as long as she made him eggplant at least once.
In truth, it was pretty amazing, especially since he had little or no training in most of those areas.
I think even as a little kid I was kind of in awe of all the things he was constantly doing. I started out just following him into the basement, watching and asking constant questions. 'What's that?' "What does that do?' 'Where are you putting that?' 'What kind of glue is that?'
I was the shop assistant that basically didn't assist but just asked annoying questions. It might have been to shut me up, but my dad eventually started giving me pieces of wood, extra nails, a hammer, whatever was lying around. I happily started banging away at things. Making things would be way too big a stretch, but I was doing things. Then I got the best Christmas present of my life - my own tool set. Not one of those little plastic things, but a real set of tools scaled down for smaller people. I had a saw, clamps, a plane, a hammer, a level, hand drill...it was awesome. Now I was hooked. Every time my dad went down to the basement to work, I followed. My dad showed my how to mark wood and cut straight. Sometimes I even cut things for him and sanded them down after. I had my own little corner of the work area with a hang board and everything. I kept all my tools clean and put them away neatly at the end of every 'shift.'
I guess I was on my way to being handy, and then life intervened and threw a wrench in the works. My parents separated (temporarily) and sold the house. Though they eventually got back together, it was apartment living from then on. No more work space, no scraps of wood, and no real projects. I don't think my dad minded too much. After all, his weekends actually became a time to relax instead of fix something around the house. My mum was probably pleased too since they could finally do something together on the weekend. I, however, was bumped off the track of becoming the handy guy who could fix or build something for you after the zombie apocalypse.
I had two more forays into the world of tools. In high school I took wood shop and actually made some pretty good stuff. A woman I brought home once was even shocked that I had made the cutting board my parents had. It was pretty good. That said, the B+ I got in shop meant that I wouldn't risk taking another class like it for fear of it messing up my grade point average. Easier to take an academic class with tests and essays. I could study for those.
Later on, when I returned to Toronto as an adult, I taught myself how to do all my own bike repairs. I even collected a decent set of tools. Once again though, my homes after that have all been apartments with no real work space. If you asked me to repack the bottom bracket on my bike now, the first thing I would do is probably go look for a youtube video to figure out where to start. Today I am probably best described as intelligently incompetent. The woman at Lordco might not even credit me that much.
Now that I have started life on theBside, however, I am determined to get started on that path of being somewhat self-sufficient. My first step is knots (something else my dad was damn good at). I figure I can learn that while watching a movie. We'll see.
Either way, I feel like I have a lot to live up to. Coming up on three years since his death, my dad still gives me something to aspire to.
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