Handy Danny? Not.

A handyman, I’m not. In fact, I’m very near patheticman.

Let’s blame my father. Although he grew up on a farm in Oregon, Dad didn’t display either a lot of skill or interest in doing “projects” around the house. Oh, sure, he’d fix a stuck window—or paint a wall—or hammer in a nail on which to hang a picture.

Once, though, when I was in high school, he decided to cut down a tree that was dying right near the back of our house—near, in fact, the bedroom/study he shared with Mom.

It was a Saturday morning, as I recall, and he came upstairs (where his three sons lay asleep in three separate bedrooms), walked right past my younger brother’s room, right past my older brother’s room, right into my room, where he woke me (it was early—about 9) and told me to come help him cut down the tree.

And so we did. (Dad didn’t give choices, just instructions.)

Wisely, he had tied a rope to it, so that if it started to fall toward the house, he could pull it away. It did fall toward the house, and someone took a picture of that moment that shows Dad, his farm-boy muscles straining mightily, pulling that tree away from the house. (He did it!)

Where was I? Probably watching in wonder at Dad’s strength.

I guess by the time I was in my teens I knew what a hammer, pliers, and a screwdriver were for, but I found no real occasion to use them.

When we moved to Hiram, Ohio, in the summer of 1956, I started seventh grade. A year later, all the 8th grade boys had to take shop (the girls took home ec),,and I did not exactly distinguish myself in Mr. Walter Lohr’s class. I just looked at my old transcript: I got a C+ the first semester, B the second.

I remember making a birdhouse that no self-respecting avian would deign to enter (despite location, location, location). And I also made some kind of box for my mother, a box in which she could store ... who knows? She actually kept it around for a few years before—probably their move to Iowa in 1966–she “lost” it.

I do remember learning how to use a jigsaw, a table saw; I learned the difference between a ball peen hammer and a claw hammer. That sort of thing. Oh, and a cross-cut saw and a ripsaw!

Early in our marriage I did a few things, none of which impressed Joyce. (Did regrets form early?) I did some painting now and then.

Later, I once put a new plug on our electric fry pan (I’m surprised it’s worked ever since).

But I can’t remember many other things.

Our son, surely inspired by his father’s incompetence, is really quite handy—and fearlessly so. He learns how to do things on YouTube, does them with skill—new floors, plumbing, wiring. He can do it. Hat’s off, my boy! (Oh, and he does some car repairs, too.)

I do admire—even marvel at—the skills of workers we’ve had around the house. Some of them have been really quite remarkable. But now that I’m 75 and stumbling along, it’s pretty certain I’m not suddenly going to change.

And if Dad were alive now, there is no way he would come near my room on a Saturday morning.