The Handyman

I wrote this little ditty in 2005. It's part and parcel to the letter I had prepared for my son, Josh. I think it still rings true. It has elements of self discovery, personal growth, and humility. However, after this year I feel I've learned a little more than I knew five years ago. I'll let you read it here as originally written. Hope you like it.

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16 February 2005
The Handyman Jack

This morning I am having difficulty writing down any thoughts. I am listening to George Jones, some of his oldies. How clear things seemed such a very short time ago. These old country songs that I learned to enjoy when I was a boy your age take me to a place years ago. Driving with my father in his ’78 Chevy Scottsdale. Listening to AM 1550. I remember the standard transmission and working the clutch, the wing windows, the blue vinyl seat that was ripped, and a well-worn steering wheel. This was a time when cars had a switch for the headlights on the floor and you always carried a Handyman Jack in your truck.


I still remember that my father’s only desire was that his old truck would have a sliding rear window. I miss that old pickup. It was white with primer spots and rusted wheel wells. I learned to drive in it.
At times I think of a time when at fifteen years old I bent the front panel and put a giant gash in a brand-new tire. It was on a deer hunt near Grantsville, Utah. I had begged and pleaded for my father to let me drive. So confident, so able, I would surely impress him. As we drove up the dirt road along the cedar hills, we scouted for deer. I made sure to casually drive with one hand on the wheel, just like dad did. The key was not to focus too intently, but to look far ahead of the truck and let Old Betsy do the work. As we bounced along in first, and second at times (there was a crawler gear too) there appeared a small crevice in the middle of the road. I straddled it with the wheels and continued looking, hoping that dad would gain confidence in my obvious talent for driving. The crevice at first had started out only a few inches deep. The washout from the Spring run-off that had found its own line of travel out of the mountains along the cut of the meandering road. As we continued to climb in altitude, the crevice grew to about a foot deep, and then to a foot wide. Then, soon it widened slowly to about two-feet wide. At times I would have to cross over, keeping her high along the one side or the other of the deepening channel. As I drove I became nervous, the gently bouncing pickup, was in some places more primer-grey than white, but was still my father’s only way to work. Ignoring the desire to turn around, admit concern, or ask for help, I continued to drive on. Periodically peering left and right through the rolling sage brush and pebbled desert floor and juniper trees for elusive deer. With growing concern, I looked left and right and began to worry about the growing gap beneath the old pickup. In my effort to concentrate on the burgeoning gulch to the right, I landed upon a sage brush with the front wheel on the driver’s side. I heard a gut-sickening, “crummchhnn”. All at once, I knew that the sound meant things gone awry very quickly. Without any outward panic, and projecting counterfeit calm, I eased the old pickup in reverse and backed up two feet and off of the sage brush. In my effort to extract us from the holds of that pernicious sage, I placed a gigantic gash in one of dad’s brand new front tires. It is important to note here that your grandpa Bill had a habit of only being able to afford two tires at a time, and would normally replace them just prior to deer season. Unfortunately he would always put them on the front of the pickup. His theory being that should he need to put the truck in four-wheel drive that the grabbing and pulling would be more effectively done by the front wheels and not the rear.

Sick inside I stopped cold. I remember staring out the front window, afraid to look to my right, where dad would surely be about to curse and carry on about how I had to drive, and how he knew this would happen. Quietly, we both got out, and walked over to the front tire and surveyed the damage. In the forward motion I had indeed crushed the left front fender up like a crushed beer-can behind the wheel. No amount of bondo would cover it; the fender would have to be replaced. What’s more the new $100.00 tire had a gash about 5 inches long and bisected the bright white stripe that encircled the tire. With deep anxiety, and afraid to look for dad’s expression, I asked him, “What do we do now?” In a way I will never forget, dad calmly said, “Well… I guess we had better get the spare off and change it out.” I had been dreading what he would say. What I was dreading is what I knew he should have been said. Instead, dad taught me that day, how to change my own tire, the importance of a star-wrench, and how every man should own a Handyman Jack.

I think about that day once in a while, and as I type her tonight, I think of another lesson I didn’t realize I’d learned that day; that small crevices can be like any of the challenges and troubles in our life. The small crevice in the center of the road at first is of no consequence or concern to us. We can easily straddle it. As the warm sun shines and we drive along, a little trickle of course is of no consequence. The small furrow in the road, is of no concern and therefore needn’t concern ourselves with finding another route, or carefully deciding how far up this particular road we are really qualified to go. However, if we are watching out to the side, watching life go by, and if we aren’t vigilant and conscious instead about where we are going, that chasm will imperceptibly widen. We at that point, often still have a choice to turn around, to change course, to find a new route. Some of us however, become overly-confident in our abilities and we begin to jump to one side or the other. Flirting with the intoxicant of danger, believing that we are different, and that gravity will not inevitably pull our wheels in, and thereby ground us and require us to be humbled and forced to dig out.

That day my father taught me many things. Lessons I am not sure he was aware he taught me. Lessons about patience. About responsibility, self sufficiency, and of course humility. That day I resolved that if I ever had a son, I would teach him to drive, that I would be patient, and if he ever crunched a fender, or popped a tire, that I would teach him how to change it. I have been impressed by the importance of a quiet demeanor, of AM radio and old country songs, and the importance of a star wrench. But most of all, I learned lessons about character, and about the nature of temptations, the nature of our character. I learned that things that at first glance, appear to be of little consequence, we need only to look a bit further up the road, to where we are ultimately heading, to decide if it is truly the path for us. I learned also that we can become confident in our own abilities, that we can ignore that still small voice, and even enjoy the challenges of going it alone, facing the danger, and nearing the edge. I learned a lot that day, as I think about it now. I learned that day that I had to learn my own lesson, that small channels, can become wide chasms, that the edge, although the most challenging, can also be the most detrimental. I learned that it’s best to pay attention to where you’re heading, anticipate what your heart tells you is ultimately going to happen, and, above all, to carry a Handyman Jack, just in case you forget to listen.

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