Handy Man

This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but as a person of the male persuasion I'm probably pretty useless. Sure, I was born with the right DNA and came with all the right working parts. It's just that I've never taken to real guy things, like real guys are supposed to do.

Take  music. My classic rocker friends will disown me but I’ve just never been into metal. In fact, I didn’t really start appreciating blood and guts guitar until college. But I’m happy to report that since then I’ve broadened my musical horizons and have willingly come to embrace the front-and-center in your-face-electric guitar. But sadly- and honestly- as a more tender and sensitive soul, my taste in the tunes skews more towards a good ballad than a good ball-buster.  

 

So what’s that I’m listening to now? Probably the sound of my ‘man card’ being irrevocably invalidated.

 

Computers? Shoot, these days there’s hardly a soul with the Y chromosome who doesn’t know his way around a hard drive; or pretend he does, anyway. But me? I know enough to know I don’t know much.

 

Logging on? Familiarity with the function keys? Sending an email? Check, check, check. Yeah, I can do the things I need to do- to do my job. But understanding how the damn things actually work? Search me. Plug it in and boot it up. If it stops working, re-boot. If that doesn't help, I’ve heard there's nothing a hard boot can't cure. Anything after that, call Fry's.

On a related subject I’ve never been a gamer, either; never had an inkling of interest. Shoot, I've never even owned an X- Box or Play Station. My closest brush with computer game fame came one night not long out of college when I gobbled up nearly 15000 points playing Pac-Man. Big wow.

More manly man stuff I suck at: power tools or heavy machinery. I am handy with neither. Yes, I can screw in light bulb, and if hard pressed, change a tire or pop in a spark plug. But that’s about as far as my mechanical aptitude goes. Yet this should’ve been right up my gasoline alley because I come from pretty good stock. Grandpa Mason could build or repair anything.

 

The man was a jack-of-all-trades, both a skilled carpenter and ace mechanic. Good with a hammer and nails, he was an absolute magician anytime he had to dig around in the guts of an engine. Gears and pistons and belts and bolts were no match for Grandpa, familiar with the most intricate power-driven device as if he'd designed it himself. When I was little, I used to watch him all the time, trying to learn how he did what he did. He’d explain it to me too. But nothing seemed to stick, except oil to my hands and fingers

 

But that proved to be of no value once I found myself in Mr. Tonelli's Auto Shop class in high school. I was as out-of-place there as a declawed and defanged cat at a canary convention. Fortunately- or maybe not- for all the actual work assignments I wasn’t alone: Tonelli put me in a group with four other losers who were equally useless.

Our first task that semester- and supposedly the easiest- was taking apart an engine. And for a while I thought we weren’t as inept as I’d given us credit for because the dismantling went just fine. But when we had to put it all back together, well, that’s when we started having problems. There were 6 parts left over. And between the five brains in our group, not one could figure out where the metallic stragglers should go. So we stuffed them in a locker and hoped Mr.Tonnelli wouldn't notice.

 

He did.

But he wasn’t mad and didn’t yell and actually found our “cover up” somewhat amusing. He still gave our group a failing grade on the project. And then it was all downhill from there. I didn’t compare my final grade with the other butterfingers I worked with, but I’d bet my last lug nut Mr. Tonelli gave them the same mark as me: “Incomplete”.  Thinking back to the unfinished engine, with six lonely parts still waiting to be put back in their places, I guess that grade was more than apropos.

However when I got into wood shop, I fared a little better there. At least I could identify all the tools, and even learned how to use a jig saw and a lathe. In fact, during my wood shop semester I made a not-ready-for-prime-time baseball bat (it busted in half the only time I used it) and built a couple dilapidated looking bird houses. Though the closest either project would get to the Woodworkers Hall of Fame was its garbage bib, they were done well enough to get me out of Mr. McCoy’s wood shop class with a “C” minus.

 

But I think McCoy went easy on grading that semester, because that was the year he accidentally sliced off part of his thumb on a band saw. And this was the capable instructor instructing us?  My guess is, after the accident, anyone who finished the class with all their digits still intact probably got a passing grade.

 

Bottom line, I tend to be more creative than mechanical, a little softer than hard. I’m neither a guy’s guy, a man’s man, or a ladies knight in shining armor.  But when the chips are down and it's up to me to take care of my family, there's one thing I know I can fix; anytime, anyplace-- a sandwich.