Man Skills

I am not a man without man skills. However, I am sure that compared to my dad when he was at my age and thinking of my grandfather while I was growing up and my man skills do not compare. I think back to my grandfather working on his cars, changing the points or putting in a new alternator in an afternoon, building a storage rack for all his junk and getting out the old wood chipper to make some mulch. Looking back on my father, he built a huge addition on his house, and a couple smaller ones, not necessarily finishing them all, but getting pretty far into them. Plus he worked on his own cars. In fact, to have a mechanic work on your car was disgraceful. Plus, having run his own business he was constantly doing man stuff to his machinery.

I will say it again, I am not without skills. It's just that I don't have the level of skill that my dad had at 36. Probably around the time my dad was 36 I remember waking up one day to my dad tearing out the wall in my closet so he could make the door wider. He did it totally unannounced. In fact, I think he just decided that day he was going to do it. I could do that, but it would take weeks of planning and research. Nope, not dad. The funny thing is, dad has never been one to go out and buy nice tools. He would rather figure out a way to do it with hand tools. But, I do thank him for that. Because usually his trying to do things that way would end with dad being so frustrated he would cuss out that damn 2x4 for not coming out of the wall. After all, he was using a hand saw, hammer, and chisel to get that pesky thing unattached from the wall where it had been happily living nailed in with eight 18 penny nails for the past 40 odd years. Darn that 2x4 to h-e-double toothpicks! Watching him get that frustrated for all those years made me realize that even if I purchase a tool that I will only use once or twice a year, if it saves me that aggravation, it is a tool worth having. But, as my father said in jest years ago, but still has a ring of truth to it, I have a lot of nice tools, too bad I don't know how to use any of them.

Then there are my vehicles. Both grandpa and dad always did their own work on their cars. Today, I don't even change my own oil. I know how, it's just that to me, I feel like the hour it would take me is worth the $24 it costs me to have someone else do it. Plus grandpa and dad always dumped their used oil in the back alley or in a vacant field. Today, that is a giant no-no. We have to take the time to take it some place for them to recycle it. I figure if I have to drive someplace to get rid of the oil, I may as well drive to Jiffy Lube and have them take the used oil out of my truck and put new in while they are at it.

As far as doing other things on my vehicles, they really don't make cars the way they used to. They are so complicated that you almost have to have a mechanic look at old Bessy if she starts having trouble.

So, I guess what it boils down to is that times have changed. We don't really have as much time as we used to. As a result most men my age don't have near the man skills that their dad had and that's bad and sad. Maybe it's just a fad. I doubt it and that makes me mad, but just a tad. But, I am glad that I took time to put pen to pad. Please, stop this lad.

Sorry, sometimes you just gotta rhyme! Anyhow, it sure would be nice to go back to simpler times. Maybe when the bottom drops out of the economy, because of the like of Home Depot, we will all have more time on our hands.