December 2022
By Richard Fleming
I’ve never been handy with tools. When growing up in Topeka, many of my friends learned how to build things and fix broken gadgets. Their parents taught them these skills. Usually their fathers. It was the early 1960s. Other kids my age learned how to replace door hinges. Attend to leaky pipes. Build small stools for their younger siblings to sit on while watching the old black-and-white.
But not me. I knew how to rake leaves. I could change batteries as adeptly as any young person. But anything involving tools was outside my realm. My parents preferred I focus on mental construction projects. When I had the option to take Mr. Huber’s Industrial Arts class (we called it “shop”) as an elective at Roosevelt Junior High, my parents made me take Art with Mr. Burgess instead. My friends in shop class learned how to use various and sundry tools. They produced small devices made out of wood and metal. Over in art class I learned how to apply random swaths of watercolor to blank pieces of paper. I have utilized the skills I learned in art class exactly never in the past 54 years.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I want to say I admire artists and I love art. Even watercolors. But I must also say my enrollment in junior high art instead of shop class has haunted me my entire life. Actions have consequences.
Over the years, my attempts at repairing broken doors, clogged drains, and malfunctioning toilet flush handles frequently went awry. My efforts to assemble beds from kits and install overhead racks in the garage were exercises in frustration. I usually succeeded eventually, after several trips to the hardware store for advice and strained wrists from using tools incorrectly. Each project took hours to complete, far longer than the instructions claimed.
As my age has increased, my adventures in home repair have become even more difficult. The obstacles are both physical and mental. My body no longer readily contorts into the posture needed to address a garbage disposal which has gone on strike. My neck objects to the prolonged hyperextension required to work on a recessed light fixture in the kitchen ceiling. What happened to the nimble fingers and flexible joints I possessed just ten years ago? When I was in my 60s.
But the cognitive challenges are more humiliating. I recently discovered that in the third decade of the 21st Century, you learn how to fix broken home fixtures by going to YouTube and searching for videos demonstrating how to proceed. When assembling home furniture kits you need to – listen to this – use your cell phone to scan a little square filled with weird dots which takes you to a video demonstrating what to do! Can someone please tell me how a video on a cell phone’s tiny screen can be the least bit helpful? Whatever happened to simple written instructions with clear diagrams? Honestly, I don’t mind putting on reading glasses to carefully read written instructions on large pieces of paper.
Last week I had to replace a broken spring in a dishwasher door. I dutifully searched for, then watched several videos on this subject. Each described the repair as an “Easy Fix!” or a “Simple 5-Minute Repair Project.” After 45 minutes alternating between trying to dislodge the broken spring and replaying the two most relevant videos, I was making little progress. My knees and ankles were threatening to report me to Adult Protective Services. The videos incorrectly assumed I knew the right tools to use. I just learned what an Allen wrench is one month ago. How can I be expected to know what a Torx screwdriver looks like?
My wife is patient with my difficulties restoring sick appliances and fixtures to good health. She suggested I call someone in to take over the dishwasher door repair job. I was on the verge of doing so when the broken spring popped out of the door (largely of its own accord) and went flying across the kitchen. This miracle allowed me to complete the project after an hour and a quarter.
If I had taken shop class in junior high, no doubt I could have finished this “simple 5-minute repair” in half an hour, leaving valuable time to work on my many pending mental repair projects. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my parents and they raised me well. Overall. But they misunderstood the importance of learning how to use hand tools.
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Now that I’m in my 70s, I see more clearly that the chickens are coming home to roost. This phrase conveys two meanings and both apply to me. First, as most folks know, it indicates we must live today with the consequences of past mistakes. Or to put it another way, those who don’t take shop class in junior high are destined to be embarrassingly inept in home repair projects, and this problem worsens with age.
The second meaning may be more familiar to those of us who grew up on the Great Plains. When chickens come home to roost, they are returning to their shelter to rest and prepare for sleep. At present, I am fortunate to still have a fair amount of energy. And I have many projects yet to complete. But there is little doubt that I too am on the verge of coming home to roost.
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Shop class (“industrial arts”) was fun, but I think I Iearned more helping my dad with projects. He would not call a contractor unless he had no other options. I usually make a pass at DIY fixes, but quickly get frustrated; however, I get a great deal of satisfaction out of the occasional satisfactory (and money-saving) outcome. You Tube has been a great resource for me. Your post brings back memories, Richard.
ps–my own children were not offered such a class, and alas, they have shown little interest in collaborating with me on projects!
Ha! I’m reasonably adept at home repair projects. But my mantra for years has been that each project will require at least double my estimated time or treble my estimated cost, or both. Maybe I’m not as adept as I thought.
I agree with Jim that shop class was fun, but somehow those wooden book ends I made never qualified me for much. Like Jim, I was lucky to have an engineer dad, had been able to fix a myriad of equipment issues in my office over the years, and now rely on my kids. Mechanical engineer son and computer whiz daughter – I don’t need to know anything else!
Took shop in junior high. learned how to use some tools. you tubes help but only if i watch one that lays out everything step by step by step. like for dummies. Love John
This one might also be titled “Hold my Budweiser; DIY or Die”
Richard,
Your thoughts ring true with all of us and gave me smiles reading this morning. I took and loved wood shop at Aptos Jr High and believed in 9th grade that building wooden functional art was my calling, but thankful I was steered elsewhere! Never took art class as I thought it was for girls and I was not good at it anyway. Yesterday I installed an elbow latch for an indoor cabinet after a week of tracking down this hardware’s name with no help from the hardware store staff! Of all things since retirement started I have started painting, mostly watercolors, and find it very relaxing. I was correct though that I’m not too good at it and would certainly starve if I needed to make money at it….
Happy holidays!
Me? I am like Richard in having little ability to fix things, but also little interest in doing so. I married well. My wife is a plumber’s daughter and is very handy. I have become a great believe in “do it herself.
Dave Crawford
Richard, rest easy. I had Mr. Huber’s shop class and still experience most of the signs and symptoms that you just described so aptly.
I’ve been a tool guy as long as I can remember. My father too was an engineer, mechanical, so there were tools around the house and I had mostly freedom to use them. I ended up with degrees in engineering physics and biophysics and made a career out of fancier fancier tools. My music (clarinet) and theater fell by the wayside, but stayed in my heart.
My father was a perfectionist, slow to prepare and even longer to finish, but when finished, his projects were built like tanks. He often taxed my young patience. He bought a lathe to build model steam engines that he never finished. And books. He did make the most beautiful polished wooden lathe bit holder, which I still have and also the lathe itself, and thank him for it and for much else. He did teach me a lot.
But it drove my mother crazy. She could never get things fixed around the house. It was really my maternal grandmother who taught me the practical aspects of tools and how to get things done, like those repairs. She lived with us for years, a pioneer woman from Nebraska. I still have her biscuit cutters, made from recycled tin cans. At 80 years she was up on a 2nd story ladder installing the storm windows. That sort of resourceful.
For me as I get older, 74 now, it does take longer for me to get around to all the honey-do tasks, much of that due to mental blocks, that things are harder than they turn out to be. It’s hard to get off the dime, I’m simply lazy, I need the right tool or supplies, or I need to dig through YouTube chaff to find one right on for the task at hand! My grandmother would certainly raise her eyebrows to see life today.
I did take 9th grade shop, also mechanical drawing. Forgotten curricula. I harbor memories of the wooden hinged broom holder, the steel BBQ fork, the cast aluminum mini bowling pin, and a forgotten electrical project. The teacher was a tough old ex-navy guy and I think he didn’t like me–I smart-assed with him about which way electrical current flows.
My brother and I were fortunate to have a carpenter/ maintenance man as a father. My brother is a master wood-worker and artist, and I am fairly handy with tools and enjoy most projects. But, I have to admit that my programmable thermostat outwits me every time. YouTube is my salvation.
Thank you so much for the chuckle this morning. I am so glad I found your blog and look forward to many more as we age! Glad to hear you are enjoying retirement because I still have not found a healthcare provider that is able to come close to your care!