First things first… this isn’t some sappy crap about my Dad being a saint or the greatest person to ever live. I’m pretty sure he’d be pissed at me if I wrote something like that. Nobody’s perfect, so those tributes reek of ass-kissing and come off as disingenuous. Nope, I’ll keep it real. At least as real as I can remember since a lot of this will be focused on stuff that happened a few decades ago.

Second… no, my dad didn’t die. In fact, quite the opposite happened. He recently hit a milestone that nobody, including he, ever thought he would; his 80^th birthday. It’s been a pretty remarkable ride as you’d know if you heard some of his crazy stories through the years. From growing up on a farm in a small rural town to earning his place on the Navy Underwater Demolition / Seal Team and becoming a Vietnam veteran with several gunshot wounds and broken bones to multiple careers, businesses, and side-hustles; marriage and kids, years of battling cancer, to an 80^th birthday and beyond. An amazing milestone that most of his contemporaries never got the chance to see. How the hell did he make it when most born in 1942 didn’t? Clearly, his 80 years weren’t on cruise control either. As I’ve joked with him and Mom many times… he’s got a lot of city miles on that body.

So why a tribute now?

For starters, what the hell good is a tribute when someone’s dead?!? “Hey Dad, I really appreciate this and that. What, you can’t hear me because you’re dead? Well… shit!” See how that doesn’t work?

Seeing him reach this milestone combined with my own awareness of the difficulties of juggling everything that comes with being a father led me here: an appreciation of having him not only present and involved, but actually finding time to fit in some valuable life skills that had a HUGE effect on my life. In traditional families from decades past, it was common that mom stayed home to take care of the kids and the home while dad worked a full time job to “earn the bacon”. Although my mom worked outside of the home once my brother and I started going to school, we essentially grew up with this traditional arrangement. Dad always worked full-time, early morning until evening, sometimes getting home closer to bedtime than dinner. Mom was home shortly after school to make sure we had dinner and that everyone kept up with homework and chores. On the weekends, Dad caught up on home projects and yard work while Mom tended to laundry and cleaning.

We can all relate to how much time these things take and the difficulty of squeezing anything else into the schedule, but somehow, it happened. My parents still brought us to church and visited family on most Sundays. My brother and I were involved with scouting and sports or band for years and somehow my parents got us there. Although I’m sure it wasn’t always easy, from my little microcosm, it appeared as though this went off with little to no glitches. What I realize now though, in being a dad myself, is this is a LOT of work! And this is basically considered “standard” parenting. How the hell does anyone even have time to breathe? On top of this though, thinking about things that made my dad unique compared to many others, there were plenty of life lessons that are exceedingly rare and more valuable than most can imagine, and these played a huge part in changing the entire trajectory of my life.

I remember driving a Chevy Camaro when I was 17 years old and the first time she needed brakes (we all know, any car owned by a man is female). Rather than handing me 100 bucks and pointing me to the nearest garage or dealership for repair, my Dad said, “C’mon, you need to fix your brakes.” Sorry, do what? I knew Dad worked on cars and once in a while I got elected to stand by with a light or to find and hand off tools, but how the hell am I going to fix the brakes? As we went outside, I tried remembering if I had even helped with brakes before? Probably, but I didn’t remember jack or shit about it!

We dug the tire iron and bumper jack out of the trunk, and after a brief reminder from Dad of how to use them, I broke the lug nuts loose and jacked up the front end. He showed me how to get the wheel off, pull the brake pads, and pull the rotors, which I did. Then, we went to Pep Boys to buy new pads and have them resurface the rotors. Once back home, he taught me how to reinstall the rotors, press in the calipers to accept the new pads, install the new pads, and put everything back together, which I did.

After dropping the bumper jack down and giving the lug nuts a final torque, he told me to start it up and very gently pump the brake pedal only an inch or so a few times until it builds pressure. I started it up and began pumping the brakes. “Dad, it’s broken! The pedal isn’t doing anything!”

“Yeah, I know. Pump it a few times slowly. You’ll feel the pedal come up.”

Sure enough, it worked! “Got it! It feels normal now.”

“Okay, now take it for a ride around the block.”

Panic attack sets in; heart racing! What? Me? Drive it around the block? What if I screwed up and the wheels fall off?! I could destroy the car, or worse, I could crash and die in a fiery inferno! I had no reasonable option. With my heart racing and hands shaking, I backed it up out of my parking spot and started out of the driveway. Yay, it stopped at the end of the driveway! I took it for a drive around the block. Surprise! I didn’t die. In fact, it acted exactly as a car should when you accelerate and brake. Holy shit; it worked! I had fixed (with oversight and guidance) the brakes on my car. The kicker was that it took about 2 hours including the Pep Boys run and only cost about $30 instead of $100! I basically saved $70 for 2 hours of my time and some know-how; 35 bucks an hour for a 17 year old kid was pretty damn good in the 1980’s!

Now, I could conquer the world! Yeah, not exactly, but in that moment, a lot of things changed. I remembered all the house projects I had suffered through (helped with?) over the years. We grew up in a fixer-upper, and we were always fixer-upper-ing things. I thought about all those projects; the demolition, framing with new 2×4’s, replacing cabinets, installing carpet, drywall, joint compound, painting, plumbing, adding electrical outlets and fixtures. All that stuff my Dad did with a little bit of help from us kids and Mom. I realized I had seen that stuff multiple times and actually remembered parts of a lot of it. I knew how to use a chainsaw, circular saw, jigsaw, and hand tools. I could use a tape measure and knew how to add and subtract fractions. I knew how to use a hacksaw to cut PVC piping and prime and cement new pipes and fittings. I knew that I saw Dad get zapped enough that I wasn’t going to fuck around with electrical (until years later) because that shit can kill you dead if you screw up. I knew how to and wasn’t scared of putting a hammer through a wall to start a demo project, and knew how to use a utility knife to score new drywall for the reconstruction. And now, I knew how to repair disk brakes on a car.

Eureka! It occurred to me that through the years, even though I may not have been thrilled with holding a light still for ½ hour at a time or going back to the tool box 4 times until I actually brought back the lock-jaw needle nose pliers; through osmosis, I had learned a lot of stuff. I decided that I would fix up my bedroom closet. The walls were in decent shape, but the door didn’t fit the framed opening properly, I could use more shelving, and there was no trim or carpet. I was off to 84 Lumber to get supplies, and a couple of weeks later, my closet looked amazing! Woohoo!

When I bought my first motorcycle, a 1982 Honda Nighthawk 750, I didn’t know the first thing about air-cooled inline-4 motors or specific maintenance needed, but my Dad had taught me how to use tools, how to buy a Clymer Repair Manual, and follow directions. So when that cycle needed the four carburetors synchronized and a valve adjustment (shim over bucket design for you motor nerds like me), I bought the manual and tools and followed the directions to fix it myself.

Many years later, my wife and I decided to buy a first fixer-upper home close to work. I had remembered the house projects I helped with as a kid, and combined with HGTV and YouTube, felt like I could do anything short of a major addition. Because of this ability, I was able to drop my primary mortgage by $70k and live in a much more desirable area only 2 miles from my job. That experience primed us to take on another fixer-upper a few years ago, which eliminated our mortgage completely, and combined with selling our previous fixer upper at a huge profit, helped me retire early. Only a year later, when a great deal on a Class A RV that needed some TLC fell in our laps, since I was comfortable with vehicle AND house repairs, we could jump on it with minimal fear. All these dominoes fell into place for me because my Dad taught me not to be scared to fix things on your own.

From all those projects, I had learned that it’s all about having a basic mechanical understanding of things, and then how to fit pieces of materials together a specific way to meet a need or do a task. You have to learn how to measure and use tools to cut and join materials and fasteners. You have to remember or document how to put things back together after you take them apart, and in today’s world, you just have to know how to use YouTube to find what you’re trying to learn. That and you have to tell the difference between people that actually know what they’re doing and the Obi-Wan-Jabronis that have no F’in clue.

These lessons really hit home for me when I was working early in my career and I was going to lunch with a couple of co-workers. On the way, the driver said he needed to stop by Pep Boys to get new wiper blades. After we went in and found his wipers, we went up to the counter to pay. Then he asked “Is anyone available to install these for me?”

“Sure, but it’ll be about ½ hour since they’re out to lunch and I’m by myself on the floor.”

My friend was genuinely confused; “Can I come back later to get them installed?”

I couldn’t take it anymore; “Dude, are you kidding me? Let’s go!”

I grabbed the wipers and started walking out, so he followed. Within 2 or 3 minutes, I had the wiper blades on his car and we were off to lunch. He was literally mesmerized that I knew how to install wiper blades. The instructions are on the outside of the damn package!!! Are you kidding me?!

How did this get lost? How have we moved in the span of two generations from near self sufficiency to not being able to read instructions on a package and replace something that doesn’t even require a tool? I realize that my Dad was brought up this way because there weren’t repair shops or construction tradesmen on every other block in their hometown, and even if there were, they likely wouldn’t have had the money to pay for them. But, just because we have the money to pay for any product or service we can imagine, does that mean we should know how to do nothing except our primary job function? Is it a good thing that people have lost the knowledge, ability, and comfort to fix things themselves? Obviously, this is one of the reasons these services are in such high demand nowadays and cost so much.

So thank you Dad! Thank you for teaching me to take care of shit myself. Thank you for teaching me how to use tools and how to fix things. Thank you for making things a little uncomfortable sometimes by having me help with fixing said things, even when I didn’t want to. Turns out, not being scared of learning and trying to build or fix things was probably the best gift you ever gave me. Because of this, I’ve literally saved tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over my life and basically made early retirement possible so now I have time to teach my kids some of the cool stuff you taught me.

While we’re at it, a hat’s off to all the other dads out there that teach their kids how to fix stuff. Whether through a desire to learn, necessity, or preference to save money, it’s an amazing and empowering gift that can serve anyone throughout life. Those teachings provided me with a lot of savings and an early retirement, and I can sleep easier at night knowing that if something breaks, I can probably fix it.