Jun. 11, 2007 - 23:12 MDT

A BOY THING

From my earliest awareness the toys I loved best were ones that were at least in two pieces which I would glory in being able to put them together to make a whole.

I guess the first "Twisted Nail" puzzle was given me by my Grandma, how elated I was when I learned how to get those nails apart and finally back together again.

When I'd go with Mom and Dad to see my cousins, I'd go to their window seat and lift the lid and dig out their puzzles, some wire, some wooden, some metal. After long ages I learned how to work all of them too.

I was fascinated by mechanical things. I managed to accumulate a screw driver, a small hammer and a pair of pliers.

One day a treasure dropped into my hands. A windup alarm clock that turned up in a trash barrel in our alley. I got to it first.

My main ambition was to take it far enough apart to see what was wrong with it. The disassembly was a daunting job to say the least to a young boy like me. Reassembly was almost impossible, but I came close at times.

I disassembled the engine on my wind up train, to where just the works and wheels existed. Man would that thing zip around the track before it went sailing off onto the floor. One pleasure I had was in putting the train track together, just so. Lincoln Logs were fun, but I liked Tinker Toys better and managed to accumulate quite a few pieces of them. Never could afford the little electric motor though, I did so lust after one.

Before the Soap Box Derby came along we kids would make our own four wheeled cars, a one by eight or twelve board for the body, a two by four for front axle and chunks of two by four to hold the rear axle. Figuring out how to attach wheels to the front and provide a pivot so that steering could be accomplished was a thing of joy to accomplish. A broomstick stuck from the front through the dash with rope wrapped around it and attached to the front two by four supplied the steering, the broom stick had some kind of wheel for steering, even if it was something off an old coaster wagon. Only thing we never were able to do was to obtain a motor of some kind, probably the luckiest thing that could happen thinking about our daring philosophy.

Although I did many different kinds of work while maturing my fascination with things mechanical endured. Which as I aged merged with carpentry, and machine tool operation as well as work on assembly lines.

The idea of "making something" was an urge that I could not ignore, and didn't want to. I guess if the opportunity was ever presented to me I would have become a brick mason or a construction carpenter, several of us haunted the sites where houses were being built.

The house next door to us started out as a vacant lot. One day a man with a team of horses showed up, with the gear and all, some kind of scoop was attached to the team with harness and he proceeded to dig the basement. Of course the hole had a slant at each end which was filled in after the foundation was poured. I was able to watch the building from below ground to a finished product. The sight of things being built, the sounds of hammering, sawing, planing was music to my ears. No table saws whining back then. No nail guns either.

Watching the cabinetry being built, doors being fitted with latches and hinges and finally hung to work perfectly, an education in itself.

In adulthood I had the opportunity to do similar things on freight trailers and then later on campers. For a while I was an assembly worker on the B58 capsules.

The urge and interest is still in me, but I am too old and feeble to do much about it, except have dreams that I am still doing it.

I guess not all men grew up like that, but I would guess for many of us, it was A BOY THING . . . . . . .

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