Amusingly, just days after posting about my Dad and the lawnmower, today he put it out on the front lawn for free. It died while he was cutting the grass, and combined with the other problems it had been giving him, stopped being worth it. I guess there’s always a line to draw.
Tag: Dad
An Example
On the same note as yesterday’s post, I’ve been thinking a bit about makers. That’s “Makers” in the modern American sense. Suburbanites who have realized they can opt out of consumer culture and fix things or make them for themselves. Obviously this isn’t novel in many parts of the world, and is only recently novel here. It’s kind of strange that I fall into this group, since I grew up with a father who could do anything.
My dad built our back deck. And the pergola above it. And front porch. He installed radiant heat in the addition to our garage, and the tile flooring on top of it. Then he built the deck outside of that. He got an old riding lawnmower someone was giving away, tinkered, bought a $4 part, and it was good as new. He still uses it. He takes a certain pride in it, being from the 80s with zero safety features. I’ve heard our neighbor talking with him about how ridiculously and needlessly complicated modern lawnmowers are, and him just being able to laugh. He falls trees and splits the wood, keeping us warm all winter. He’s tackled all manner of repairs in our house, from construction to electrical. He’s always had advice on how to get something done.
I was numb to most of that growing up. It just wasn’t my thing. I was nerdy, and defined myself that way. Those skills were outside of what I was comfortable doing. That board is too heavy for me to lift. My tool of choice is a keyboard. I helped on many of these projects, but I was mostly an extra hand. Hold here, hammer this, cut that. If I was paying attention I could have absorbed a lot, but I mostly let it slide. Anyway, I’m playing catch-up now. I’m sure that exposure helped me a bit, but I regret those missed opportunities.