"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

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Name: Daniel A. Hamilton
Email: Golddan1@excite.com
Date: 31 Oct 2000
Time: 08:34:01

Story

My father was the master paternalist, but looking back he probably earned the right to. For starters, he was the father to my 2 older brothers and myself. Add to that he has an IQ over 180, a photographic memory, and the ability to not only read at lighting speed, but to apply what he read. He was competent as a carpenter, plumber, machinist, auto mechanic, electrician, anything that involved his hands and or his mind. No college education. He worked his way up from a auto mechanic to the chief electrical engineer in charge of operation of the largest NBC affiliate in the Midwest. He would often get calls from TV engineers and manufactures of television equipment from all over the world asking for his opinion and help. He was, and still is, what many call a genius. But along with all that wonderful greatness, he not only had an overdose of paternalism, but an ego that placed himself, in his own mind, as a god. This lead to a strange and educational childhood.

One of Dad's god-like acts was to lean over us whenever we attempted to work on anything mechanical, electrical, wood, just anything we were doing , he hovered like a vulture. The minute we vaguely looked as if we were going to perform something in a manner he would not approve of, he would snatch whatever tool we had out of our hands and follow that with a disgusted grumble in his voice that bellowed "Here, give me that before you screw it up!" I will never know how we learned anything because, even if you just asked for advice, he would automatically take over whatever project you where working on.

This was aggravating to us for a long time until one day I decided that if Dad wants to do it, then let him! That day is when there was a sibling pow-wow where we conceived our plan of attack. It was such a cleaver plan that was targeted towards the main neural receptor of Dad's most vulnerable emotion: his ego! It's never been detected and still works to this day, some 30 years after its conception.

The next morning I purposely went to work on an old bicycle that I had not rode in over a year because it needed the crank bearings replaced. I had another bike anyway, so why bother with trying to fix it. This was different today though, not only could I try out our new plan, but a neighbor kid wanted to by the bike for 50 bucks cash if I fixed it. So this was about to turn out to be a great day for me, and the beginning of taming the paternalistic beast. Or at least learning to work it in our favor.

I pulled the bike into the garage and set everything up to start to work on it. Then I immediately went for the biggest hammer in sight. It was a 2 pound short handled sledge hammer. Then I proceeded to pound on the bottom of the bike frame and yelled out some words of disgust and anger, pretending that I couldn't get the pedal crank out of the bearing housing on the bike. That's when dear old Dad came out. "Here, give me that," he bellowed, and I quietly stood down and surrendered my weapon. After 10 minutes passed, he was so involved in fixing my bike that I went inside and watched TV for the next 2 hours until he called me out to try the bike out. The bike was perfect and after we cleaned the garage up I took the bike on one last ride to the neighbor's house, collected 50 dollars and went back home. This was a great day, and the beginning of the a way that made paternalism work for me -- and not against me.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it"

Story

Last changed: April 20, 2004