Category: CREATURE FEATURES (Page 36 of 37)

Just because you’re retired and have more time, doesn’t mean you’re any smarter.  I have to remind myself of this!  Most retirees are on a fixed budget, but this does not translate to “I can fix anything.”  If you couldn’t handle “Do It Yourself” on the weekends all these years while you were employed, you probably still won’t be able to deal with it now that you have more time.  It only makes sense that you should try, especially since it might be a good way to save some money on home repairs.  After today, I’m having my doubts.

I was always good at electrical repairs, having some training with “Heathkits” and Amateur Radio Clubs while I was in High School.  I learned to solder, completed some certification testing, and enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together.  I also had friends that excelled at electronics, but come to think of it they went on to earn degrees in Engineering, Chemistry, and Biology.  My degree was in Marketing, not home repairs.

For those of you not familiar with the Heath Company, they are located in Benton Harbor, Michigan, not too far from my home town in northern Indiana.  From 1947 until 1992, they manufactured electronic kits, saving you money if you could put them together yourself. They were one of the original D.I.Y. companies, with one of their biggest sellers the O1 Oscilloscope, a necessity in every home.  Just kidding!  Supposedly, no knowledge of electronics was needed to assemble a “Heathkit.”  The kits taught Steve Jobs, for example, “that products were manifestations of human ingenuity, not magical objects dropped from the sky.”  I was four years older than Steve Jobs, but obviously not as deep, so I learned to simply build some walkie-talkies, radios, and even a reel-to-reel tape recorder, while he was probably building a computer out of spare parts in his dorm room.

The last item that I bought from Heath was a fully assembled reel-to-reel Sony tape recorder. This was because the one I tried to save money on never worked properly, and I was beginning to see my limitations in D.I.Y.  As a side-note, my Grandparents were going to drive me to the factory to pick up my purchase.  They insisted that we stop and pick blueberries on the way.  I was anxious to get my Sony, so I was very disappointed that we were stopping. They said I only had to fill one bucket, but it was still like waiting for my Grandpa to come home from work on Christmas morning so I could open my presents.  He worked for the Post Office.  Well, I “delivered” my bucket full of blueberries, but got caught by my Grandmother stealing from her pail to fill mine.  To this day, I want nothing to do with “Pick It Yourself” or “Do It Yourself.”

A good friend in High School named Grant, who I met while working as lab assistants for our chemistry teacher, eventually went on to get a P.H.D. in Biology, to teach and research at Boston College.  His room at home was a teen-age electronics wonderland, filled with remote control everything, and could operate anything from his bedside, long before it was a household standard.  He was also fascinated with phones, and frustrated with his sister who was always talking on it.  One night I helped him dig a trench from his house to the neighbors. We then buried a wire connecting the two phone systems and built a switchboard that allowed him to transfer his sister’s conversation over to the older neighbor’s rarely used line.  It worked great for a couple of weeks, but one Saturday morning after we had spent the night experimenting with explosives, there was an army of phone company trucks parked next door.  In a panic, Grant went out to the property line and cut the wire with a shovel.  We could see from the window the repairmen slowly pulling up the buried wire that suspiciously ended just before his house.  To make a long story short, the phone company representative must have recognized genius. For some reason, he didn’t report the incident, but rather showed my friend how to hook up his own line to the telephone pole, where he enjoyed free phone service for the next few years.

Grant’s genius extended into the classroom, where he could control the clocks remotely, moving the hands forward fifteen minutes so we could get out early.  He also rewired the language lab outputs so he could listen to rock-n-roll while the rest of the class learned German. Since his single dad was always traveling, Grant’s basement became an extension of our Chemistry Class experiments.  We would “borrow” equipment and chemicals to make fireworks, and perfect our formula for nitrogen triodide, a contact explosive recipe that we bought for $1 through Popular Science magazine.  The trick was to distill pure ammonia and combine it with iodine crystals.  The mixture remained stable as long as it was wet, but once it dried and someone touched it, there was a small explosion, leaving a faint iodine stain.  It was perfect to paint on the pencil sharpeners in the classroom.  Surprise!

One night the two of us made a batch of “nitro” in my parent’s basement.  We found that by saturating newspaper with the mixture and then tightly wrapping a small wet wad with dry newspaper made what we called “cracker balls.”  If you threw them on the ground once they dried, they would explode with a resultant purple stain.  We had made hundreds of these throughout the night and left them in the basement to dry while we got some sleep.  When we got up the next morning, they had somehow exploded, leaving iodine stains everywhere.  I was worried that my dad had taken some trash down to the incinerator and accidentally stepped on them.  I checked the shoes in my parent’s closet for stains, with no sign of accidental discharge.   We’re not really sure what set them off, but spent the whole day cleaning and painting, hoping to hide the signs of our experiment-gone-wrong.

Grant was also the one who taught me about auto repair.  He claimed that the average auto mechanic probably had a lower IQ than we did, so we should be able to fix anything mechanical.  When we were in college, he always had auto parts laying around his apartment, as the Fiat he was driving needed constant repair.  I had the same problem with a Triumph GT- 6 Fastback that I bought with graduation money.  I took his D.I.Y. attitude and tore apart the engine in my Dad’s garage, with carefully labeled parts strewn everywhere.  My mom was the only one in the family with a tool kit, since my dad had zero aptitude for repairing anything.  You can imagine the horror on his face when he hit the garage door opener to discover that his pristine garage floor was littered with engine parts.

I did get that car back together and running, despite a few remaining nuts and bolts, but it was never the same.  I realized my low potential for D.I.Y., and apologize to all skilled service people for Grant’s assumption that I was smarter than they were.  Grant, who was smarter than most, got his multi-million dollar lab and eventually worked himself to death.  In fact, he was such a workaholic that they found him in that lab on Thanksgiving morning.

This all now takes me full-circle to the point about having more time in retirement, and falsely thinking that because of that luxury, I could save a few bucks on Do It Yourself home repair instead of calling in a professional.  Will I ever learn?

I went to the hardware store and bought two things: a replacement switch for a light-dimmer and a metal bonding adhesive.  I had to go back for another switch, and ended up ordering a third option on-line, after talking with a support technician.  It will be a few days before it arrives and then what?  I will undoubtedly end up calling that  electrician that I probably should have called in the first place.  To make matters worse, the “sure-fire” adhesive didn’t work either, making its purchase a complete waste of money.  As a result, I wasted several hours of “my time,” proving once again that just because I’m retired, I’m certainly not any smarter.  The next time someone recommends D.I.Y., my response will be “Do It whY?”

Practice for retirement should include a river cruise.  It’s as close to what I can imagine retirement community life would be like.  Got gray hair, dyed hair, or no hair?  Well my friend, welcome to travel at the slowest possible pace.  Mix that with the physically and mentally challenged, and it can be like running in molasses.

I’m actually enjoying the snail’s pace, especially since I have a tendency to push forward without smelling the roses.  However, I just might be in an alcohol-induced coma!  Just like a luxury retirement community,  one  has many choices aboard including guided tours, painting classes, lectures, group dining, and theme buffets.  A piano player entertains during the cocktail hour.  They’ll even bring in accordion music to get you really fired up!

We traveled today by bus to Monet’s Garden.  With a river cruise you’re always close to shore and alternative transportation.  You also have the convenience of not switching hotel rooms every night, plus great food and an abundance of spirits.  Even molasses for your crepes and to slow your speech.

I haven’t had a lot of “my time,” so there are many words stuck in my head.  I’ll sneak away from the group activities on occasion and get them out of my head and on to a page.  I certainly don’t associate my writing with greatness, but I’m sure that the French artists worked in a similar manner.  They’d get a picture in their mind and become obsessed with getting it on canvas before it dissolved from their memory.  They create masterpieces, while I vomit words!

With any form of art, it’s not necessarily created for fame and fortune.  It’s simply something that you imagine in your mind and hope you can share it with others.  Many artists, unfortunately, do not achieve notoriety until long after death.  Claude Monet was obsessive, continuously perfecting varieties of a similar vision on canvas.  He at least enjoyed a degree of wealth from his passion.  Sadly, many artists never do!

There were no drunken squabbles over dinner last night, as incorrectly predicted.  Just a very pleasant sunset, as viewed through my wine goggles.  The boat is safely docked in Rouen for the next few nights, with a variety of guided tours available tomorrow.  These include the nearby chapels that Monet obsessively painted when he wasn’t in his garden, where we are today.  I might even check- out Joan de’ Arc’s bar.

Merci – I’m grateful to get these words out of my head!  I’m also glad I could share them with you on this once blank page.