Thus The Circle Is Now Complete...

They say that we all become our parents, that it is fate, predestination, an inevitable fact of life.  Many of us struggle (vainly) all our lives against this destiny, but we simply cannot fight the imperatives of our blood, our DNA, and most especially, our upbringing.

Sooner or later, you will hear yourself say all the annoying crap your parents used to say to you (usually once you have kids.)  You will look in the mirror and see the same features you mocked them for having (when did my mom sneak in at night and tattoo the same dark circles under my eyes that she always wore?)  And all the asinine rules that they enforced with you become logical brilliance now that you impose them upon your own offspring (try actually paying for a roof, and suddenly demanding fealty from those who dwell beneath it makes a hell of a lot more sense.)

I've never had too much of a problem with the idea, because my folks are okay people for the most part.  Sure my mom has some issues I'd be happy to not carry on myself, but my dad at least has his head screwed on straight enough.

Well...

As I've mentioned in the past, my father is an engineer first and foremost.  He likes to build, to modify, to tinker.  But above all that he likes to dissect, both mentally and physically.  He has never been satisfied with something that simply is, that merely works and, by its very functionality, becomes invisible.

My father looks at those things, wants to know how they work and why they work.  This is not idle curiosity to him, this is his genetic mandate; his purpose on this planet.  He demands the cosmos reveal its inner workings to him and reveal its deepest secrets.  He will know how something ticks, why it ticks instead of beeps, what makes it not tick, and how it could be made to tick better.  This is his raison d'être, and will not be deterred by things like the opinions of others, warranties, sealed exterior casings, local laws or severe shock hazard warning labels.  He will open a device up, study its works, make it better if he can, and then shove it all back in, possibly with some popsicle sticks added in for good measure (that's a story for another post.)

As an example, there is a famous incident that we have mocked him about for years now.  It happened probably 25 years ago or so when the family was eating together at a diner.  While we were waiting for the food to arrive, my father had picked up a spoon off the table and was staring at it intently with that brow-furrowing scowl that he used when engaging his brain in theoretical dissection mode (which as anyone who knows him understands is his true smile.)

Finally my mother asked him what he was doing and he answered (as is so often his wont,) with a question of his own:

"Look at this spoon."  It was one of those cheap, pressed metal spoons common to such eateries.  "Do you see how the handle has a channel running along the bottom side?  Why do you think that is?"

And the game was afoot.  Now we knew that there would be no peace until we had done our best to try and guess the answer, and then sat there and endured a lecture on the real reason.  Among the four of us there was much groaning and eye-rolling and snorts of derision at the old man, and we have continued to make fun of him over the years for this exercise in banal observations, but we played along and gave our guesses.

I don't remember what any of us said, or if any of us guessed it right, because none of that was important.  But I do remember the explanation, because it was right.  It was a simple, basic concept that formed an underpinning of the modern world around us and every structure extant within it.  It was the good kind of physics, the sort that didn't lurk on paper, coiling into formulae afraid of the sunlight, it was out in the open, creating the hard edges of reality that delineate human existence.

It was a fucking spoon.

But it was all science and reason and rational thought rolled up into a simple groove, a fuller in the blade of logic, slicing through the chaos of primitive existence.  And he made us touch the monolith and figure out how it worked for ourselves, rather than just giving us a word to explain it all, so we could memorize it for the test.  I never took physics in high school (not enough math to take it,) but I know how to look at things and see how they work.

You bet your ass I remember the spoon explanation.

Because it taught me how to look, how to notice.  My father may have had a short attention span and poor situational awareness in other areas of life (don't ask him to babysit is all I'm saying,) but when he focused on how to solve a problem, his mind was like a laser.

And I have done my best to emulate that quality in my own life.  I look around me to try and understand why things work, and how it could be made better.  And that is one aspect of my dad that I am happy to carry on, and to pass down to my own children.

But there are other aspects...

Not everything about my dad is a virtue I extol as part of a template for good living.  His fashion sense for example, is not above reproach.  Now I know what you're thinking; "but Chris, everyone thinks their parents' fashion sense is out of date and laughable, that's just part of the generation gap!"

I don't mean that the short sleeve button-up white shirt with ugly brown striped clip-on tie combo that he wore when working at IBM were ugly (that speaks for itself and needs no help from my exquisite wording.)  No I mean that sometimes he leaves the house 'dressed' in 'clothes' that stretch both definitions.

As I've noted, my father spent a lot of time working on machinery, from cars to water pumps, to different cars.  And that means getting dirty and covered in grease.  My mother dilligently made sure he would not wear his (ahem) 'nice work clothes' when working with rust, grease and dirt, and ensured that he always had on some junky clothes instead, usually ripped and faded blue jeans and stained T-shirts with holes in them.

This was fine, except that inevitably he would need to go out to purchase something like a necessary tool that he did not yet own, a replacement part for whatever he was working on, or a replacement tool he had just broken (perhaps the one he had just purchased.)

And it simply did not occur to him to change clothes before going out (hell, she was lucky if he bothered to slather Gojo on his hands to remove the grease, dirt and blood from them before going out.)  So he would visit the hardware store, auto parts store, or any other place of business while wearing the aforementioned junky ensemble.  He looked (and I am putting this as kindly and respectfully as I can out of my deep respect for my father,) like a homeless person who had been hit by a car, and then gone after the offending vehicle to fistfight it for revenge.

My mother took issue with this expedient, and did her best to convince him to curtail such grime-encrusted visits to local businesses (this was before we had Wal-Marts to come along and make this sort of thing socially acceptable,) but to no avail.  He continued to make sorties into proper civilization clad in the crusted uniform of the black collar worker elite.  She eventually gave up, and now just insists he not wear his regalia to weddings and funerals, but she loses ground each year.

I of course have avoided this fate.  I was raised better than that, and would never dream of being seen in public sporting such uncivilized garb.  Not me.

Flash forward to three or four weeks ago when my car's battery died.  Now, thanks to my father, I am perfectly prepared to change a battery on my car without much difficulty.  So I ran out to the store (in real people clothes, thank you very much,) and purchased the necessary battery and brought it home.  I installed it, bolted it back down with the ridiculous array of struts and cages that they encase batteries in these days on compact cars and was done.

If you are not familiar with batteries, I have to advise you, as a public service announcement, that the acid contained within is a marvel of destruction.  You won't see an impressive sizzle or a puff of smoke, but if you get any of that shit on you or your belongings, you will be regretting it for years to come, as its effects can be quite far reaching and initially quite subtle.

My wife and I had quite a tragic experience with a battery a few years ago, and lost many things to the event (I don't want to talk about it.)  So now I am very cautious when dealing with such caustic substances.  Thus, I was not going to risk any of my fine wearables while working on the battery.  Instead, I was wearing my own junky ensemble, never to be worn in public.  By an odd coincidence, it too consists of an old pair of blue jeans with frayed holes in them, and a white T-shirt I normally sleep in.  Ironically enough, since I NEVER purchase white shirts (I do not wear white clothes, other than socks.  You can call me goth or emo, or a rabid Johnny Cash fan, but I have my own reasons,) this particular shirt was one of a bunch my mom and sister had made for my dad's 65th birthday years ago, and I got the leftovers to wear as junk shirts.

The battery change went smoothly and was a (very dirty) success.  But I needed to test the battery (and run the car long enough to fully charge the new battery.  My wife had mentioned that we had library books that were about to be overdue, and needed to be returned.  Logic.

So I grabbed the beat up canvas shopping bag with the books in it, and drove down the street to the library, no big deal.  When I got there, I went up to the book return and started feeding in the books.  That's when I noticed the security guard giving me dirty looks.  Also, people crossed the sidewalk to go around me as I approached.  The people inside the library, visible through the glass doors, were clearly concerned that I might be planning to actually enter the building itself.  What was going on here?

Then I looked down.

Oh.  I looked like a homeless person who had perhaps recently been involved in a hit and run and subsequent vengeful fisticuffs.

You can't fight your fate folks, Happy Father's Day.




(I know some of you are wondering about the groove in the underside of the spoon.  Tough, I want you to figure it out for yourselves.)