When I was a small boy growing up, there was always someone in the neighborhood building something or doing something under the hood of a car.
They were a major influence for me. One neighbor whose backyard adjoined ours was Karl Janke. His son Karl and I were about the same age. We played together and built endless “forts.” Karl, the father, would put a 6-mil polyethylene plastic roof on them, since we were not into the roof thing at that young age. He would supplement what we couldn’t do and leave us to our own devices.
There also was a grandfather in this family, Otto. Otto was from Germany and always made a hat out of a paper bag to wear while working in the “shop,” which was most of their basement. I think it was to keep sawdust out of his hair, except he was bald.
There was a big vise that was mounted on an old tree stump in the basement, too. Boy, we used that vise for everything. We squashed wood and held it in place while cutting pieces for whatever project we were on to.
There also was Uncle Irv, Irving Lovell, who now lives in Eastport, last I heard. I will never forget the day that Karl and Irv built a new back porch. For a 5-year-old, that was a massive undertaking with big wood and it was 4 feet up in the air.
Under the porch was a great place for another fort. It was put to good use, with a library of old Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines. Good times!
They did not spend what today we might consider a lot of “quality time” with us, but they left us to our own devices and we had a ball.
I was watching a TV program about Paul MacCready, the man who designed the GM EV1 electric car and a lot of extremely innovative aircraft, including the first human-powered airplanes. Paul and his son Terry talked about what they did as kids.
They both noodled around with small paper airplanes, which to this day are so impressive that everyone wants one. Funny thing is, people want these planes but do not seem nearly as interested in making them. Isn’t that a sad commentary on our times?
This seems to be something that is sometimes lost in today’s world. I admit, in hindsight, I wish I had spent more time doing these things with my children. What we did do together — building things and monkeying around with tools and computers, and building whatever — will always be precious to me.
The good news is that even though they are all more than 20 years old now, my children are usually making or fixing something. They have learned a lot of hands-on things from my wife, Bonnie, and me, and I am sure they cherish that feeling of accomplishment of having done something themselves.
We have the extreme treasure of big-box stores and lumberyards full of very affordable tools and materials that Karl and Otto would flip over. I can just imagine the projects those backyard builders would be taking on today.
If you get the chance, hand over the cordless screwdriver and some pieces of pine to some young person you know and let them make something. It might be trite to say, but they will always remember it.
Questions for Tom Gocze should be mailed to The Home Page, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402-1329. A library of reference material and a home-project blog are at www.bangordailynews.com/thehomepage.html.