\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Last Saturday I ran in to a gentleman I used to work with before I retired from Highlands in 1999.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“What are you doing here?” he asked.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Shifting the emphasis, I answered his question with another, “What are you doing here?” But before anyone gets the idea my ex-colleague and I came across each other in a brothel or an adults-only video parlor, let me explain.<\/p>\n
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need to come up with the excuse that “Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m conducting research on bordellos and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here.” No, it was nothing like that. We met at Pino\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Quick Lube Center, where we went to have our cars lubed and jubed.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The embarrassed questions were understandable. Why it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t more than seven years ago, around the time I retired, that I would have saved 30 bucks by putting the oil in myself. Usually the last Saturday of the third month was the time for me, with the help of sons Stan, Diego or Ben, to buy oil and filters, drive the car up the portable ramps, locate the proper wrench, drain the offending fluids and “save a bundle.” An hour and a half later, we were done. And look how much money we saved.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0For a while last Saturday, I saw why there was the element of surprise. My colleague and I both surmised the other person shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to rely on a commercial establishment in lieub of doing the work himself.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I wonder whether retirement itself told my biological clock it was time to turn over matters like oiling a car to the experts. How much is our time worth? Paying someone to get oil and grease on his own uniform is preferable to soiling my store-bought JC Penney clothes while on my back in the driveway. Or was it the familial camaraderie of two, three or four machos taming our cars, daring to perform such a complex operation?
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Did we used to change our own oil \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a form of male bonding \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in the same way that every barbecue ever performed has been done by a man? Do men ever even cook inside the house? No, not real men.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Then why do we men unhesitatingly scrape off last summer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s petrified barbecue bits from our grill, don a cook\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hat, squirt gallons of fluid on the charcoal to provide barbecue fit for the gods? Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because in this age in which everything is done for us, we have to be masters of something. Recent columns have lamented the fact that high technology has reduced us men to impotent key-turners, as nothing under the hood is serviceable, except for replacing windshield washer fluid.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But Arnold and Patrick at the Quick Lube Center took care of that too, making me feel even less utile.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0So why do men barbecue? Well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply because shortly after the invention\/discovery of fire and the realization that partially burned mastodon tastes great and is less filling, men took control of things in nature. So today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s macho, flipping ribs on an electronic-ignition-equipped grill is no different from his prehistoric grandfathers who kept their brood fed, and in so doing maintained mastery over the beasts.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But back to mechanical tasks:
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Before retirement, I dreamed of operating a bicycle repair business out of my home. My sons appeared to like the idea and proposed we all learn the ropes, er, spokes.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0We acquired a short-lived reputation as the Camp Luna bike repair shop, often working on three or four bikes when time permitted. But that encouraged too many neighborhood kids, who often left a twisted wheel on our porch with a request that we build a bicycle around it.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Once, for training purposes, we spent an entire Saturday driving our pickup through streets of West Las Vegas, looking for spare parts. Wherever we spotted a dead or dying bike, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d stop. “Hey, Bro. How about if we take that bike off your hands? No charge.” In no case did we request a complete bike; rather, we inquired only when the bike was clearly non-functional. We returned home with a seven spoke-less rims, six splintered sprockets, five soiled rings, four coaster brakes, three wrenched threads, two curdled gloves and a cartridge in a bare tree.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s amazing how many bike owners wanted compensation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d we previously agreed we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d pay no more than $10 for the bike or parts, even if it had been owned by Lance Armstrong. And an equally large number of bike owners wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t part with their bikes. “I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m gonna fix it up one of these days. All it needs is spokes, pedals, handlebars and a frame.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Yeah, right. “He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gonna fix it up in the same way people who have a car that won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t run buy another one just like it, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfor parts,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122” and the result is two clunkers in the front yard.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Others appreciated our enterprising spirit, thanked us for spiffing up their property, and wished us luck.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take long to realize that every bike we put together was really a foreign bicycle, in that every part was foreign to every other part. We collected lots of brands: Schwinn, Huffy, Wards, Sears and K-Mart.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0And trying to assemble a coaster brake with parts from 20 different models proved daunting. It became obvious that many of the parts were broken, defective or of inferior quality to begin with.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I could easily understand the conversation between a doctor and an auto mechanic, who went to the same party.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The physician was miffed because the mechanic charged him more for a minor auto repair than the doctor charged for an office visit. The mechanic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s justification: “Well, I have to learn hundreds of makes and models of cars; you, on the other hand, have only two models to work with.”
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0And I recalled a time, some 20 years ago, when I needed a single spoke for my bike and asked the late John Korte, of Korte\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Furniture and Bicycle Sales for “a spoke for a 27-inch bike.” Well, that wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t good enough for Johnny Korte. “There are many kinds of spokes, my friend,” he said.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0He was right. To be quite sure, I needed to bring the entire bike into the shop. The shop owner did the installation himself. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about the time I realized the world of bicycle repair can function quite well without me. The only trouble is that I have a huge stash of assorted used bicycle parts.
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Anyone want to make an offer?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Last Saturday I ran in to a gentleman I used to work with before I retired from Highlands in 1999. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0“What are you doing here?” he asked. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Shifting the emphasis, I answered his question with another, “What are you doing here?” But before anyone gets the idea my ex-colleague and I came across each other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}