Dads

I’ve been unable to write about Perkins or the home garden recently because my weekend involved an unanticipated surprise. On Saturday, my friend Frank called to see if a paddle was in order for the day, forecasted to have highs in to 90’s. I agreed, but that’s not the surprise.

Julie and Abbey agreed to shuttle us to the put-in, and then back home; but between the put-in and the take-out, the Mazda lost both of its belts. So while the paddle was nice, the evening was filled with shuttling all four of us home, plus all the gear, then getting parts, tools and trying to make the roadside repair. It didn’t help that home and the car were on opposite sides of the county.

Frank was a big help just carting me around and putting up with the unintended activity. We made good progress on the repairs, but just before dark we were stymied with a frozen bolt and inadequate tools for the job.

So this brings me around to the title of this post. As Julie and I returned to the car to finish the repairs this Father’s Day afternoon, I got to thinking how thankful I am that I have a Dad that took the time years ago to teach me a thing or two about how to turn a wrench and how cars work. I’m sure he had plenty of other things to do when I bought that old Pontiac at 16 years of age, but he sacrificed many an evenings to walk me through numerous repairs. That time was an intangible gift that has paid huge dividends over the years—not just in savings on car repairs, but also in giving his son confidence that many repairs and other daily tasks can be met head-on.

The tangible benefit to all this year’s Father’s Day activity was that we all stopped at Sears on the way to the car to fetch a better wrench for that stubborn bolt. Given the day and the big sales at Sears, I was given adequate liberty by Julie and Abbey to purchase a few extra tools to upgrade the toy-like sockets I have been using since I bought that Pontiac. I have learned over the years that the right, quality tools make life immensely easier.

So $50 in new tools and $20 in parts and we now have a running Mazda. My guess is that a tow across the county and repairs from a shop would have cost me at least three or four times that. While I like saving money, that feeling pales in comparison to the satisfaction of knowing my daughter’s reaction. As we were getting ready to leave, she said to Julie, “Daddy…did it!”