FIXERS FIX THINGS, BROKEN OR NOT

Do you believe fixers fix what’s broken and improve what’s not broken?

You should, after all, you’re one of them, aren’t you?

If not, give it some time. You will join the group eventually.

We all have that fixer gene, and know who to call when it proves defective.

For example:

My heat went out in the middle of winter. It was a cold day with a big football game coming up.

I could have let it ride and convinced the wife we were experiencing the same weather conditions as the players.

“There’re playing indoors,” she said. Case closed.

I found a repair guy who came out on an emergency call and reviewed everything about the heater before replacing the battery in the thermostat. For $100.

The heat kicked in and saved the day. That was a quarter century ago.

Two weeks ago, in a different house than before, I woke up wondering if I left a door open, or window, since it was colder than it was supposed to be.

Without hesitation I trotted over to the thermostat and changed the batteries. Done.

Do fixers fix things? Yes they do, and sometimes it turns out right.

How Does Anyone Learn How To Fix Stuff?

It starts with paying attention.

I hired an electrician to add a 220 line to my fusebox.

First he stared at the box and did the calculations in his head.

I asked if he needed help. He said his rates were $75/hr, but $100/hr if I helped.

It sounded like a no to me since I was paying attention and paying him.

For most of us, we learn at the knee of our parents if we’re lucky enough to have fixers in the family.

My dad graduated from college at thirty with a wife and three kids. He took five years getting his degree after spending the previous five years in the Marine Corps and going to the Korea War in 1950.

He grew up as a farm kid and we all know farm kids can fix anything.

Part of his higher education goals was getting his kids interested in learning.

He taught his boys how to cut and split firewood and find customers.

To spice things up, he bought a ’64 Chevy short bed and told us we could drive it if we paid for gas and insurance. That put a hop in our woodcutting work.

After we wore the first engine out the old man found another one and hooked it up in a car repair shop run by guys he knew. They gave him some room and let him borrow tools and he knocked it out in a couple of evenings.

I was fourteen and floored that he knew how to do that.

Fixers Fix An Old Car

With his success in luring his boys into a money making firewood scheme, he upped his game

“Boys, it you go to college and do well you will be tooling around campus in a car that looks just like this,” he said, showing a picture of a 1958 TR3.

It was exciting news. A few days later he took us down to the garage where he’d swapped engines on the Chevy and pulled a tarp off a pile of junk in a corner.

It was a wrecked TR3, the front end crushed in a rear-ender. It didn’t look like the picture he’d shown us.

A few weeks later we took a drive over the mountain to bring back another wrecked TR3. It had been rear-ended and left with a perfect front.

The idea of buzzing around any campus in a cool car looked sketchy, but what did we know.

Over the next year we watched him do magic in that garage when he turned two wrecks into one car and topped it off with candy apple red paint job.

That car sat in our home garage with a tarp over it like a brass ring at a carousel.

It was a college car. But things changed, we didn’t show much enthusiasm for the car, so he sold it to a local kid.

The spare parts car, like something from a Johnny Cash song, held together long enough for the new owner to catch it on fire and burn up.

We all went to college just the same.

Fixing Modern Problems

I’d like to wake up one day soon to the news that we’ve all learned how to get along better.

If farm-learning fixers fix worn out engines and turn two crashed cars into one, how hard would it be to fix the covid pandemic before the death toll hits 1,000,000?

It’s over 900,000 now.

How many infections and deaths can be avoided by covid vaccines and covid masks?

I’d like to wake up one day soon to learn that the shit-talking hosts like Fox News hosts, and Joe Rogan’s spew, have admitted to their anxious followers that they are just who they sound like: shit talkers extraordinare.

“I talk shit for a living — that’s why this is so baffling to me,” he said. “If you’re taking vaccine advice from me, is that really my fault? What dumb shit were you about to do when my stupid idea sounded better? ‘You know that dude who made people people eat animal dicks on TV? How does he feel about medicine?’ If you want my advice, don’t take my advice.”

When the President of Shit Talk chimes in, a fixing man’s inspiration who says he alone can fix things, broken or not, then you know you’ve arrived at the highest level of the trade.

Donald Trump is angry that Joe Rogan is apologizing for repeatedly saying the N-word.

“Joe Rogan is an interesting and popular guy, but he’s got to stop apologizing to the Fake News and Radical Left maniacs and lunatics,” the former president wrote in a statement released Monday night. “How many ways can you say you’re sorry? Joe, just go about what you do so well and don’t let them make you look weak and frightened. That’s not you and it never will be!”

Weak and frightened people make up a large part of the audience for both men and cling to them for life.

As a member of the Weak And Frightened Club, I have no problem being weak and frightened

Unlike the fans of Trump and Joe, I don’t require their pep talks to bolster my strength and bravery.

Shit talk is the food needed if you’ve got shit for brains. And you don’t, do you?

That’s not you and never will be. (See what I did there? I think you do.)

Fixers fix stupid, or give it their best shot.