Eye Magnet? No Thanks

Life changing moments, you don't forget those.  Getting married, the birth of a child, starting a new career, when you set out on a new path for your life, those are pretty memorable moments.  However, there are also those moments that are just as important, but instead of starting down a new path you put a "Do Not Enter" sign on it.  That was the day I decided I was never going to be a mechanic.

I could've had a good life as a mechanic.  Learning from the best mechanic around, being able to take over the family business, it would've been easy.  My ten year old brain even went through the checklist of all the fun things that a mechanic gets to do everyday. 

Getting greasy and dirty? - check
Using tools everyday? - check
especially a tool like a B.F.H.? - check
working on many different types of cool cars? - check
Saying what a B.F.H. actually was? - check

Cool, right?  But then I noticed some other things about being a mechanic that weren't so great.

B.F.H = Warmth

After reading my earlier post "Get Me A B-F-H" my sister June shared with me another "Phil" story involving a big friggin hammer.   The reason I didn't know of this story was because this happened when I was very young (I am the youngest in my family by at least ten years, a fact I never let my siblings forget) and this story takes place in our old basement. 

I didn't go in the basement as a child, because I thought the very gates of Hades existed down there.  It was dark and musty.  Occasionally I would hear these low growls and moans emanating from that dark abyss.  I swear to God I once heard these moans say "Hammer Jr, I want to eat your braaaiiiinn".  However, after hearing my sister's story I now realize that it wasn't some zombie from Hades hungry for my brain, it was our old fuel oil furnace struggling to start up.

The house I grew up in was built in the 1920s-ish and the furnace was still the original one that came with the house.  So, it was old.  Since my father was really good at keeping mechanical things running, he felt no need to replace the old furnace when it was acting up.  His solution you ask?  Why, a BFH of course.

My sister told me that dad always had a big friggin hammer lying next to the furnace and when it wouldn't fire up he would give it a whack and then it would work for a while.  Nevermind the fact that HE WAS HITTING A FURNACE WITH A HAMMER!  A COMBUSTIBLE FUEL FURNACE!  My sister would hurry outside when she knew dad was going to whack the furnace just in case we needed someone to identify the bodies if something went wrong.  Very smart of her.  The funny thing is that years later, my sister and her husband moved into that house when we left for the farm.  The first thing they replaced?  The old fuel furnace.

Sometimes, You Just Have To Create The Right Tool For The Job.

My dad, Phil, must've enjoyed work, because my freshman year in high school we moved from town to a farm.  When most people get above 50 years old, they tend to slow down a bit; "Lighten the load" so to speak.  Not Phil. Although, he did sell the shop, he then converted a barn on the farm to his new shop.  A place where his customers could still bring their cars for Phil to fix,  when he wasn't out in the field.

All this extra work meant Phil needed to make sure that he had the right tools available so he could get the job done quickly.  And then there arose those times when the right tool wasn't available, but that didn't slow down Phil.  That just meant that Phil needed to CREATE the right tool.

"GET ME A B-F-H!"

If my dad had a mutant power, it was his ability to fix anything mechanical. Of course, my wife believes this is a mutant gene that I don’t possess and she would be correct (she’s always correct….its horrible for me). Anywho, my father was a mechanic working in a small shop that he built himself, earning a good living turning wrenches and getting dirty.

Phil (what other non-siblings called my dad) wasn’t just any run-of-the-mill mechanic. He was the best. He wasn’t just a Ford guy or a Chevy guy or a Studebaker guy, he was all of those. His experience and knowledge concerning cars was unmatched. My father’s shop was where you took your car when the other mechanic(s) failed. I wish I would’ve paid more attention to what my dad was doing underneath all those cars, because I’m terrible when it comes to fixing anything with four wheels. However, I still got quite the education from my dad, just not his mutant power.