When i was a kid

[steve from staten island]

I know this came up before but had this conversation with a few guys at the garage today. When i was young in grade school a friend and myself use to take these battery electric motors, wire them up with dry cells, knife switches,light bulbs and make them run, have the lights go on and stuff like that. We were really young but what of course we didnt realize we were learning. Later on i got into slot cars and being that it was a new thing there were a few slot car tracks opening in the vicinity. Next i got into re-wiring the small slot car motors. We'd use a different gauge. Stripe all the old wire, coat the armature and re-wire with more or less windings (cant remember) and different gauge wire. The cars went really fast but the hand controllers got really hot. I then bought a second hand jig and started making my own chassis, buying brass tubing and soldering.
From there it was mini bikes and being that my father always brought home junk lawn mowers i knew about those engines. Once the front forks broke. My father would not help and id never think to bother him. So on the bus with 5 dollars, down to a body shop were the word was the guy would weld up what you wanted. Again more lessons, skills learned. At 18 went to work in power generation and already knew the basics
Today the kids dont do this and really there not at fault. I dont think at my old HS they offer wood, electric, or machine shops anymore. I guess a trade HS does but this shop stuff was in every HS. Today its all computers and while the kids today are way advanced then i was there is a difference. One of my granddaughters is in kindergarten and i went with her to school recently at a grandpa reading thing and lets just say what these little ones learn and do is a lot different than back in my day
I dont know if any of this makes sense to some or its better or worse now but unless a young person is in the trades or similar i think a lot is lost. I dont care if a person is a doctor/lawyer or other professional its good to have some basic skill/knowledge. Even our own president knows a lot about construction and what makes things tick
I guess im just a old dog past my prime but the hours i spent building ****,doing stuff on my fathers work bench, going in the woods and taking parts off abandoned cars, just working with your hands. All that i wouldnt trade no way for playing video games or whatever kids do for fun today......Your experience's would be welcome and thanks

 

[gary h]

I Agree !

 

[Kern Dog]

I agree that many of todays wimpy guys could have been raised with a more "manly" set of standards. It is easy to bash them for being limp wristed pussies....Why? Because so many of them are.
I have a tactic I use when trying to determine the cause of a problem. I look at what is different leading up to the event/condition/situation compared to how things were a few years prior. I don't know how the educated people figure this stuff out, I'm just going off of my own blue collar sense.
Example: If an engine ran great for years but suddenly runs rough and dies, where do you look?
Did you get gas recently?
Was it at an unfamiliar, NO name station?
Taking that into account, what could have led up to todays kids being so out of touch with reality?
You have a great point Steve. The elimination of Wood shop, Metal shop and Auto shop classes have certainly had an effect.
The fact that many construction jobs today are done by immigrant Latinos that never set foot in a Wood shop class probably matters.
The fact that most electronics and appliances today are reliable enough to be sealed and UNserviceable may have aided in the opinion that Metal shop was a redundant course. If something breaks and costs more to repair than to replace, who takes the time to fix it?
The fact that new cars are so complicated that most everything needs to be done at the dealer certainly led to the demise of Auto shop classes. Old school mods like dual exhaust, bigger carburetors and headers are not as easy or as cheap as in the 70s.
So now what? We are raising a collection of people that can't fix anything, have no interest in blue collar work and couldn't start a campfire without checking google for 3 pages of instructions.
Who is to blame? Who allowed the conditions to exist that got us here?
Does it come down to politics as usual? Maybe. What party has control of the education system? Is in their interests to create a class of people that cannot do for themselves but rather rely on others to help them, paid or not?
What party is responsible for the huge influx of immigrant labor? Who allowed American manufacturing to fade away while Chinese imports soared?
I was born in 65, graduated in 83. I took Wood shop and Auto shop. As a result, I am a Carpenter that loves to work on cars as a hobby. What the hell do todays kids love to do besides look down at their damn phone?

 

[conv67bdere]

I agree and I know what you mean . . .

The other day I went to the local auto parts store to pick up some spark plugs for my '66 . . . the young lady behind the counter ( in her 20's ) is helping me, asks me for the year, make, and gets to the spark plug options . . . I tell her that the car is missing on one of the plugs every now and again. She responds to me, bring the car in and we'll hook it up to the OBD scanner to find out which of the plugs is missing. Trying not to laugh to hard at her, after all, at her age all that she's ever know in her life is cars with OBD. I reminded her that my car was a 1966 model year, and that the cars did not have an OBD port to hook up the scanner. ( or maybe I should have come back with the car and asked her to hook it up ? ? )

I grew up in a family of 5 boys, and 1 girl - my dad, in order to make ends meet would do many things himself ( and we kids got the benefit to learn from these experiences ), and he was an electrical engineer, so wiring a house is something that I learned along the way. We converted houses, re framed up big rooms into smaller rooms so we'd have enough bedrooms for all of us . . . the things that I learned along the way were not only interesting, but fueled my desire to learn more. Got out of college, got a job, moved out of state, started buying my own houses and working on them - the circle of life. Had done a little bit of wood working in my life, but wanted to learn more - sighed up at the local college for their wood shop - access on weekend to use all their tools, and plenty of "knowing" people to help you with your projects - learned a ton of stuff, bought a subscription to Fine Woodworking, read them monthly, and learned . . .

Then I get married, start a family, contract with a builder to build my family a new house - and stop by the house daily to watch the progress and learn. One of these days, the brick masons were at the house, up on the roof, and laying the bricks for my chimney. So what do you think happened, up on the roof, talking to the brick masons, telling them that I've always wanted to learn how to lay bricks - he hands the trowel to me, and says, Never in my life has a homeowner ever asked me to teach them - he then instructed me on the procedure, and I proceeded to place several bricks into the chimney of my house. I stopped back a couple other days and found them on a different house - stopped in to chat with them. The gentleman that "taught" me tells me to come with him. We go to his van, and he pulls out one of the trowels that he had, informs he that he had bought all new trowels for his team, and told me that he'd like to give this one to me. He told me that there nothing better than to have good, quality tools, when you're working on a job. I proudly took his offer of his trowel, and that tool is still a part of my collection of tools.

Get divorced, lose my job ( the same week ), and move out of the house . . . life goes on . . . Always loved to work on cars, and have a "desire" to build my own car - finally finish paying child support, move to my current house, with some land, and a very small shop . . . and my next door neighbor has a beautiful shop, tons of cars going in and coming out . . . I drool . . . then one day, he mentions to me that one of his friends has a 1967 Belvedere Convertible for sale - asks me if I'm interested. Of course - go look at the car, buy it, find FBBO, start reading and watching the likes of Propwash, Hunt2elk, 747Mopar, Mopar4Don, Sarge ( and many more ) tear these things down to almost nothing, and then rebuild them into "works of art" . . . that's where I am today, 2 1/2 years into my re-build, learning how to weld, how to tub a rear wheel well, do bodywork ( ok, I'm trying to learn it ), and continue to progress on my build . . .

The owner of the business, where I'm currently employed, has told all of us ( he loves to come into the office and have chat session with us ) that if you're not outside your comfort zone, then you're not learning . . . so needless to say, I'm "way outside" my comfort zone on my 67-vert . . . but it's slowly becoming "more comfortable" and the progress continues . . . kids of today don't understand that "joy" that you can experience from learning to do something new . . . they're missing out, not me.

 

[Dennis H]

Those posting so far know a lot more than me. I do know that when encountering a no-start vehicle when out and about it can be interesting. If a millennial is the driver, make sure the car is actually in Park or Neutral. If found to be in Park or Neutral, the millennial will not know how to open the hood. These tasks are beneath them and relegated to a lowly service person or old guy like myself to figure out. They do however have phones, buy likely not AAA. They call Mom or Dad.

 

[68gtxman]

I grew up poor, but didn't know it. My dad had been an aircraft mechanic in the Army and then a teacher of computer operations (in the 1950s) in the Air Force. He built an addition onto our trailer (6 kids in the family) with only a piece of string for a tape measure, a hammer and a handsaw. He sold it for twice what it cost him to build it when we moved. As I grew up, my dad kept saying that a college degree was the best way to not be a ditch digger and that when I turned 18, I was no longer his responsibility so "Rotsa Ruck!".

As I was growing up, I wanted things (like all kids do), but my parents couldn't buy them. So I would find them in the trash and then usually had to fix them would be useable. Bikes, radios, tape recorders, speakers, etc.. I once freaked my dad out when he was taking a nap in the living room and he awoke to sounds of music coming from his 1958 Metz stereo (which I still have). He looked at it and saw that it was unplugged! He started yelling my name because he knew that I was somehow responsible for that abnormality. (I was simply using his stereo speakers to see if a radio that I had in my basement workshop worked because it didn't have its own speaker.). I turned an old record player from the trash into a spin-art machine and I charged all the kids in the neighborhood $.25 each to make spin art with latex paint left over from my dad's past house painting projects.

I learned how to repair cars because my first car, a 1969 Plymouth Belvedere taxi kept breaking down and if I wanted to drive, I needed to fix it myself as I was too poor to pay a garage. I worked in a gas station and I drove the mechanics crazy with questions as I learned how to do most car repairs by watching them.

I got scholarships to college and joined the Air Force as a mechanical engineer. Still being poor for many more years, I continued fixing my daily drivers myself. Somewhere along the years, I began making enough money to do anything I wanted, but I still retained the "poor man" mentality. Frugality is tops with me (and my present wife as well). I can't seem to find the nerve to throw away anything that is salvageable. My sister in law totaled a 1989 Jeep Cherokee and my father in law told me I could have it if I wanted it. I ripped off the damaged front end and fixed it all myself for only $400. I then tried to give it to someone else in the family that needed a car, but no one did a t the time. So I kept it and thought that it would be nice to add a snow plow to it since it was a four wheel drive. Back to eBay for a used $600 plow and viola! Now I can plow my 600 foot driveway in comfort.

I believe that the future is going to be harder for future poor people than the non-poor, as they will not have the skills learned in the past by their poor ancestors that helped them get through their tough times in life.

Looking back at life now, I wish that someone had advised me to start my own businesses (earlier as I now am in business for my self doing forensic engineering). I probably would have started several construction businesses, selling each as they became fully viable. I think there was more money in selling businesses than running them.

 

[Bladecutter]

"He Who works with His hands is laborer.
He Who works with His head & hands is a craftsman.
He Who works with His Heart, head & hands is an artist"
*St. Francis of Assisi*
"the product of the Heart, head & hands is a thing to be loved"
*Elbert Hubbard*
"Fine art is that in which the hand, the head & the Heart of Man go Together."
*John Ruskin*
When the hands dont have the ability to carry out the directives of the Heart & head.......there is a loss.......& the lost are clueless to their loss.
"Money, money, money, muu-hny.."

 

[steve from staten island]

68gtxman, a tape measure and piece of string! Years back i worked with a Jamaican guy who was the head lay out guy at a job. He called the shots and put up a entire rock crushing plant, built the conveyors from scratch, layed everything out, set the I beams. The guy had nothing more than a tape measure, level, chalk line and plumb bob, mason string. Great story BTW and thanks, you and others

 

[Glenwood]

great stories and all to familiar!
I started dismantling toys at a young age, moving onto bicycles, slot cars, dirt bikes, cars, houses (and a marriage!). At one point during my 'slot car' period, guys from the neighbourhood brought pieces of track, car parts and other slot car stuff to me and we built a track all over my room and raced all summer! It was a lot of fun but drove my parents crazy. I've always loved to take things apart, learn how they work and put them back together, hoping they would work again.
My little KDX80 dirt bike was sick so I tore the engine down in my living room, which was not very big in an apartment! No service manual and only a set of wrenches, with a few of my dad's sockets, I spread everything out until I found the problem. The rod bearings were bad and I somehow cracked the shift drum. This is about the time my dad came home from work. Looked at all of the parts spread out in our living room, looked at me, said nothing and shook his head as he walked into his bedroom. Took the crank & rod to the local shop and had a new one installed, put it all back together and rode it for a while until I sold it.
I think my dad realized at that point that I was like him, but willing to go deeper into stuff than he would. He would tell me later, that he could not believe that at 18, I could swap engines and transmissions and various parts, as I learned these things on my own without help. He never wanted to join in the fun though. He's always been the type of person that prefers to work on things by himself and never wanted to help with things I was doing unfortunately. At 74, he still maintains his own vehicles for brakes and spark plugs, etc. and occasionally asks my advice for what it's worth.

Many trips to the local junkyards, particularly during all you can carry days, kept me going. I never had the space or money to do much else though and I gave up working on mopars when my first was born some 26 years ago about the time I got into the electrical trade. Here I continued to learn new things within the trade as I dabbled in commercial construction, high end residential and finally into industrial, where I learned the most I guess. I had the good luck to be exposed to different kinds of electrical work from explosive/hazardous areas, to sophisticated industrial motor controls and computer programming. The drive for money and my 'controlling nature' (as my wife puts it!), led me into management. I should have stuck to working on the tools where I was happiest. Management is a pita most days!
The deeper I got into management, the more frustrating and unfulfilling life seemed to become, so I needed an outlet. Going through a divorce

I worked along side of master cabinet maker years before and was in awe of his craftsmanship. So I started to learn carpentry and cabinetry. I love woodworking! The smell of sawdust and the opportunity to create things was magnetic. Still no space though, so I was limited in what I could build. Generally, I started with construction, as I renovated a two storey 1854 house, top to bottom. I did nearly everything from plumbing, new ductwork furnace and AC, gas piping, drywall, partitions, etc. Some I wanted to hire contractors but the estimates I got left me feeling I was about to be raped! Being in the construction business, I knew the general cost of things and roughly how much labour was involved. Being a thrifty (cheap) person of Irish decent, meant I would do everything I could on my own. It was here I built my own woodshop with more space to create larger things. Unfortunately, my wife wanted to move a few years later, so we landed here with a nicer home and bigger shop. No renovations to do here though, so I started building a pool equipment shed, which doubles as a platform for solar pool heating. It will have a sun deck and tiki bar when I'm done.
With the kids grown and out of the house for the most part, mopars are back in my life again! Learning to weld was (and is) challenging but I've been enjoying the process. It certainly takes a considerable amount of thought and time though, particularly never having done metal work before. Soon I will venture into the assembly of my 413 now that the machine work is done. At least I understand this area a bit more but will be challenging to do it with care and precision as this is my first engine build. Thank goodness for sites like FBBO! I would have struggled much more without you guys.

My kids never got the bug though. I've tried to include them in woodworking and now in mopar stuff, but the girls have no interest and my son is not like me. He is a creative soul that loves media. This is why he went into film school as here he should be able to excel. The trades are certainly starving for new blood but wages haven't really increased all that much over the last 20 years around here. Cost of living has risen much higher it seems though. I can't blame them for wanting more as they have been bombarded by the media for decades, with the push to afford more things and finer living. It's all a marketing ploy to drive business. They may come to realize at some point that a simpler life is probably a happier life for many of us. The folks I met in places like Italy, Ireland and Norway to name a few got it right. they tend to lead much simpler lives with emphasis on quality of life and family. I envy them to some degree.

Here's a pic of a cabinet I built a few years ago. It was a lot of work but fun to build.

I built these chairs a couple of years ago but cannot build anything else until I can move the car out of the way. that's the most frustrating part of sharing space between auto and wood!

 

[Grady Cain]

Awesome post and responses. The younger generations need to take some time, put down the phone and video games and actually talk to an elder. What they could learn in a few hours would be immeasurable. I've been very successful as an auto technician over the last 30 years. I learned everything from the owner of the small shop that took me in and gave me a shot. I was a smart-*** kid who thought I knew everything but in reality, knew nothing. He was a Dutch immigrant who himself learned how to fix things by being forced to by the Nazis after they invaded The Netherlands where he lived as a kid during WW2. He hung around a small garage in his town in Holland when he was young to learn from the older mechanics there. I remember him telling me stories of how German soldiers would make him fix their broken military vehicles. He would purposely try to sabotage them, only to get caught and smacked around by the soldiers. I did not go to trade school but rather listened, learned and used some common sense (another lost art these days.) I worked my way out of the small shop to a dealership flat-rate tech, then to shop foreman and eventually shop manager where I had 16 techs to supervise. It would be a terrible shame to lose all of the talents, crafts and skills that the past generations perfected and used to build our country. Sorry for the rambling - thanks for starting this thread steve from staten island...

 

[oldbee]

Adirondack chairs- simply the most comfortable in the world!

 

[Richard Cranium]

I grew up poor, but didn't know it.

I got you beat............

 

[Richard Cranium]

Everything today for youngsters is computer (including cell phones) related and they are addictive as hell, especially to kids. Unfortunately, by spending so much time on them, they have absolutely no idea what they are missing out on.

 

[ws23jrt]

I got you beat............

You will always have most beat with that 9sec clip. I speaks to 90% of political chatter.

 

[mopar 3 B]

You don't think they are creative just go to a high school robotics computation, visit an FFA display at a state fair.
Maybe it just because I live in a rural area where shop classes are still offered.

Really thought Steve was going to start with when I was a kid the Indians still owned Staten Island.

 

[oldbee]

Mopar 3 b and I thought you were heading for 'Chief Yahoo' that the Cleveland Indians still use! The Indian has a smile on his face!

 

[Jcharger]

Great stories, and impressive. The types of things many of you describe doing are not typical, that is why they are impressive. For the kids today it is also being atypical and getting something from their world.Those video games can be socializing and sometimes have other benefits. For instance, last Saturday, my son's Baja racing team was out testing their vehicle. Out of 36 runs, he had the 2nd and 4th fastest. He said that was from video games. When he said that, I was dumbfounded, but thought he might have a point.

 

[steve from staten island]

Im not knocking todays younger generation as times have changed and some of these kids today are very bright. Its just things are so different today and i grew up in a simpler time. If thats good or bad i dont know but id say growing up as children of the greatest generation in the 50's and earlier 60's was great. How many of you made wooden go karts or what ever we called them. Think about it, all you needed was two axels and wheels and one bolt able to go through two 2x4's. We'd steer with our feet and a piece of rope in each hand. Make a seat out of a wooden milk crate find a hill and you had fun all day long. Thats the kind of stuff lost today

 

[Sonny Black]

great stories and all to familiar!
I started dismantling toys at a young age, moving onto bicycles, slot cars, dirt bikes, cars, houses (and a marriage!). At one point during my 'slot car' period, guys from the neighbourhood brought pieces of track, car parts and other slot car stuff to me and we built a track all over my room and raced all summer! It was a lot of fun but drove my parents crazy. I've always loved to take things apart, learn how they work and put them back together, hoping they would work again.
My little KDX80 dirt bike was sick so I tore the engine down in my living room, which was not very big in an apartment! No service manual and only a set of wrenches, with a few of my dad's sockets, I spread everything out until I found the problem. The rod bearings were bad and I somehow cracked the shift drum. This is about the time my dad came home from work. Looked at all of the parts spread out in our living room, looked at me, said nothing and shook his head as he walked into his bedroom. Took the crank & rod to the local shop and had a new one installed, put it all back together and rode it for a while until I sold it.]

Glen you have a gift...

 

[ws23jrt]

I did odd stuff too. --No one to stop me I guess. (mom was busy with my six siblings)
I had 57-300C that had trans. problems. I was 17 or so at the time.
Jacked the car up dropped that cast iron trans. pulled it up to my attic bedroom area (three levels) and took it apart to learn and fix it.
All good--The fixed trans gave many miles of fun until I sold the car years later.