A typical spring Saturday morning growing up found Dad in
the driveway, under the hood of his car, leaning in—crescent wrench or ratchet
in hand—ready to fix something. If
things were going well, it might be pretty quiet – if not, Dad might share a vocabulary
lesson with anybody within earshot.
The raised hood was a signal to the other dads in the
neighborhood—Duane Everard, Earl Johnson, or maybe Ray Janni—to come over and
shoot the shit for a while. There was
always more than one way to accomplish the task at hand, and there was no sense
doing any work until all the options were thoroughly considered.
We kids started out as tool go-fers; I learned to tell a
Crescent wrench from a pair of Vice grips right out of the gate – and got my
first lessons in fractions by distinguishing a 9/16 socket from a ¾. Once we got good at this, we might actually
be allowed to tighten or loosen something … under close supervision.
We learned important lessons through this – friendship,
self-reliance, and the aforementioned vocabulary lessons.
My Saturday mornings in the garden are perhaps a bit less
instructive. I chat with my back-fence neighbors,
but nobody’s asking or offering advice – and I don’t share much edgy vocabulary. And I’ve never bloodied a knuckle tying up a
tomato plant or a dahlia. I try to add a
bit of drama to my time in the garden by playing movie soundtracks on the Bluetooth,
but it’s not quite the same. And, as for
self-reliance, one of my happiest things about the garden is that I don’t have
to rely on the produce to survive. I’m
really no better a gardener than I was a mechanic.
This weekend, I wish you all happy memories of your Fathers.
