April 7, 2013

29 of 65

Of My Many Shortcomings . . .

Of my many shortcomings, one of the most glaring is my lack of skill in repairing mechanical devices or things around the house.

It is not that I am afraid of hard work. In fact, I am on such good terms with hard work that I can lie down right next to it and go to sleep. Rather, I am one of those people who merely walks by something like a copier or a printer and the machine stops working – and one who cannot make it start again.

Most find it hard to believe that I was once in the honors program at the University of Colorado School of Engineering. They completely understand that I left the program quickly.

I do – and always will – have the greatest respect for those who can manipulate inanimate objects.  Let me give an example.

I once worked with an excellent paralegal named Susan Mapel. She was always destined for much better things than our small office, and decided to go to law school. I encouraged her and provided what mentoring she would accept as she prepared for the LSAT, the Law School Admission Test, which was given in Boulder on a cold and snowy Saturday. I was at home, warm and dry, when Sue telephoned. I thought she was going to tell me about the test. Instead, she said that her car had died on Highway 36 as she was leaving Boulder, and was calling from a pay phone to ask for help.

I put on my coat, swept the snow off the car and drove to where she was stranded as quickly as I could. Highway 36 is normally a busy road, but with the heavy snow, it was nearly deserted. I made a U-turn onto the shoulder to park facing Sue’s car. I attached my jumper cables to the two batteries to see if that would help. It didn’t. I examined the engine hoping to see something I would recognize as an obvious problem, but that did not help either.

We were close to an exit ramp, so I pushed Sue’s car letting her coast down the ramp and then continued to push it into the parking lot of a business that was close by. Brett Boyer and Wheeler Ashton were friends of mine who lived only about a mile away. I drove Sue to their house so we could get out of the snow and decide on a course of action. When we arrived unannounced, we were given hot spiced cider, were shown a new orchid that had bloomed in their greenhouse and discussed the automobile situation. Brett volunteered to help take the car to a repair shop on Monday morning, so Sue left the key with him and I drove her back to Denver.

Brett does have mechanical skills. He called me on Sunday afternoon to say he had gone to check Sue’s car and looked under the hood while he was there. He “just happened” to notice that the distributor cap was cracked. He explained that it was an inexpensive part and suggested that if Sue would pay for a new one, he could easily replace it. That was done and the car was functional again.

Sue did well on her LSAT and went back to California to attend law school (she had grown up in Pasadena and had once been selected as princess for the Rose Parade). She attained her law degree, as well as an advanced degree in art history, became an attorney, married and raised a family. Brett, too, eventually studied law and practiced in California. If things had been left to my limited repair skills, Sue’s car would still be sitting in Boulder even after all of that had occurred.

I reflected on my lack of skill more recently when I received an email from an old friend, Bob Griffith. He had been Bob Parsons back in our high school and college years, but that is another story. Bob has owned a residential contracting and remodeling company in the Vancouver, Washington/Portland, Oregon area for years. Coincidently, remodeling has been a large part of life – and a large expense – for my wife Cathy and me, though for not quite as long.

Our home was built more than 55 years ago, and we are only the second owners. It was previously the home of Les and Doris Nelson and their family. Les was another of the admirable people who could build and fix things. He and his father-in-law actually built much of the house with their own hands. Through the years, whenever repairs were needed, Les, who owned all the tools, would make them himself. As he aged into his late 80s and 90s, he was not able to do as much, but the house was in decent condition when he passed away.

Doris continued to live here for several more years, but as she reached 90 and beyond, her health began to fail. My brother Lonny was married to Debbie, Les and Doris’s daughter.

Cathy and I were ready to move from the mountains where we had lived for 12 years to a more civilized location for a number of reasons, mostly related to convenience. We learned from Lonny and Deb that Doris, who had been staying with them for several months, would need to move to a nursing home. The care would be expensive and she had few assets other than the house, which would need to be sold.

Cathy and I asked if we could purchase the house. It met some, though not all, of the criteria we had established for our next residence. We bought it, not because it was our dream house, but because it was functional and would help Doris. She moved to an assisted care facility for a time, but made her transition from this life only a few short months after the sale.

The house needed work by then, and we immediately spent tens of thousands of dollars doing extensive remodeling, which was accomplished by a contractor who was competent but not exceptional. A year later, we replaced windows, at a cost of several more thousand dollars. Then new siding was installed, for even more thousands. Last Spring, the septic system failed and had to be completely replaced – again, an expensive project.

The house is in much better condition now than when we bought it. However, I am running into a problem to which I had never given much thought. Some portions of the house are built with parts that were standard in the 1950s, others with parts standard in the 2000s, and still others are non-standard because Les knew how to fix things himself without bringing in professional tradesmen.

If Les were still here, I’m sure that he could handle almost any issue that might arise despite the disparate construction standards. I am sure, too, that Bob or Brett would not find that a problem – mechanical skills still exist, even in members of our generation. They are limited in some of us, though.

Gentlemen, I salute you; and am a bit envious. I know that it is only a matter of time until I could use such skills. Then I will remember my Indian name: He Pays the Bills.