Sunday, June 09, 2013

I have a 1973 International Harvester Dump Truck.  It has a big V-8 engine and is complete with air brakes, and air horn, duals in the rear, a body in pretty good shape, and a working dump bed.  It is really kind of cute, in a heavy equipment kind of way.  It’s only problem is that it doesn’t run too well.  It needs a set of spark plug wires and maybe plugs, points, distributor cap, and condenser.  This is the kind of automotive work I cut my slightly greasy teeth on back in the day.  Why is it that I have parked it in front of the garage to give it a tune-up at least twice without accomplishing anything except getting to honk the air horn.  This sort of a tune-up was standard for every vehicle before the age of electronic ignition and fuel injection and computer-controlled everything.  This beast, despite having an automatic transmission, was born in the age of manual.  Everything is. Why is it that I have so little desire to perform those restorative tasks that few even have the tools for anymore?  I suspect that part of it has to do with leaning over the engine and having to grow joints in the middle of my forearm to reach hidden parts.  Part of it has to do with my back complaining.  Part of it has to do with my wanting to do something more “fun”.  And much of it has to do with the fact that I’ve grown lazy and content with a vehicle that doesn’t require much more than a regular oil change and a couple of sets of spark plugs during it’s life. Life has really gotten much easier for all of us in so many respects, that it has deprived us of the necessity to know how things work and how they break and how to fix them.  I appreciate those skills and tried as a semi-patient father to imbue my children with a similar appreciation.  In large part, I am gratified to see success.  It wasn’t so in their youth, but now I see my kids taking on projects that I never thought they would ever attempt.  Sarah sews.  Not as a teenager, but as an adult, she wanted to learn and did.  Robert recently put together an entire in-floor heating system for an addition to his house from parts we both had laying around.  He also removed and replaced the biggest automatic transmission I ever saw in a pickup truck.  Rebecca just finished remodeling her kitchen and called for advice about support for the table she had to build that would be finished with a granite countertop.  Jonathon just finished making an aquaponic system that uses live fish to filter and feed vegetable plants, similar but better than a hydroponic system.  Jennifer and Tyson are getting ready to dig up their driveway and reslope it to guide water around the house.  Carolyn just finished building up a corner of their front yard with a dump truck of topsoil, and then building a greenhouse on top.  These aren’t necessarily remarkable achievements.  Lots of people do these sorts of things, but lots don’t.  There is a dearth of knowledge and inspiration and drive and can-do attitude  in the world that I am grateful my children and their loving spouses lack.  And tomorrow, I will put on my can-do attitude and tune up the dump truck.