2000-07-14 - 18:37 MDT

July 14, 2000

The Makin's

I wonder as I wander like in the song, my meandering mind is troublesome tonight, trying to hoe a straight row. 20 / 20 hindsight is usually pretty accurate but there are some obscure points that the 20 / 20 vision can't see.

Maybe a boy is like a roll your own cigarette. The paper and the tobacco are there and the results are what the user can do with them. My first roll your own cigarettes were disasters which often fell apart before I could light them. As were my first attempts to become a common sense human being.

I guess it was a strange mixture of actions and feelings that made me what I am. Curiosity, emulation, and perversity of action coupled with firm determination seem to have had a great deal to do with the finished product. (if human products are ever truly finished).

Being able to and loving to read before I entered school were teachings by example by my parents. They were readers and Dad would read poetry out loud to Mom and I would lay on the rug and listen to the rhythm and expressiveness of his readings. I also would watch and ask innumerable questions as I watched Mom work crossword puzzles. A deep love of ideas, words and definitions seeped their way into my very soul. The drama of kindness, courtesy and steadfastness were also deposited in my character partially by that too.

My Dad's meticulous preciseness came to me later on in life. He would have his pens, pencils, paper clips and stacks of paper laid out exactly in a way that seemed he was following a blueprint for placement. If any thing was moved minutely, in passing he would readjust it. When I was younger my socks, shorts and handkerchiefs were all tangled together in the drawer. When I wanted something out of the drawer I would go wrist deep and churn the whole mess over and over until what I wanted came to the top. I would occasionally see him shake his head as he saw this, but he was usually wordless. I think he was reluctant to be on my back for every little thing. His tools and work area, the nuts, bolts, nails and screws were neatly stored. I was forbidden to touch any of this stuff. At about age 10 Dad was put to work in an ice box manufacturing factory, in the process of working there he went from one department to another and learned fine woodworking, varnishing, attaching hardware and soldering. So his stuff was off limits to a kid. And he would notice if anything had been moved there too.

So with my line of thinking maybe the perversity of a boy wanting the capacity to use what he was sure he could and wishing that he - - - Nay lusting for the the implements to manufacture his own things. Consequently as an early teener I spent spare money on tools that I wanted - - - took me quite a while to save for each item, but little by little my modest store of tools increased. The war years I clerked at the railroad and did little household jobs. After the war and the return of the vets, I was looking for a job.

Most of the rest of my work life was in the mechanical area. One early job was in a ski factory where I learned the fine points on skilled sanding and the way to conquer the stubborn vagaries of Hickory wood. There was assembly, machine shop work, test lab work which entailed most of every thing I had learned to that date and a spell of being a tech rep overseas and then more knowledge of things squeezed it's way into my head.

I had become my Dad, in my roll away tool cabinet my tools were placed precisely to the point that I could reach behind me, pull open a drawer and grasp the exact tool I wanted to use at that minute. Of course, like Dad, I would adjust things and move the tools back into place after some one had entered the forbidden land.

Then at the last I was an electronics tech in a factory.

Why did I go into all that ? I think that the shaping and fine finishing from boy to man to experienced man is done by parental example as well as examples set by other family members, the child's own urge to learn and become proficient in the things he wishes to master.

The natural desire to learn things that the adults don't think practical is usually satisfied too. Going through school if a kid gives a damn he has mentors who take an interest in teaching him the things he needs to know, often reinforcing by example the ethics and morals instilled by family while teaching the technical material such as math, language, civics, history etc., etc.,

Growing up is never easy, frightening at times and always fascinating. It is, I believe that addition and combination of all things encountered that make a complete person.

Final word ? I guess that the bit of, "It takes a village to raise a child," is true if in that village are concerned, teaching parents, relatives and teachers who enable the person to advance at his own speed. But only to my way of thinking if that person is sufficiently interested and desires to become a competent adult.

P. S. Damfino about the girls - - their mystery of female mystique is their secret - - a few things I think are common, but what makes a woman out of a girl is known only by the female population. I guess

Blog