This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

A Salute to People Who Are Able to Do Things

How do people learn how to build things and use power tools?

For someone who finds the assembly of an Ikea bookcase to be a daunting endeavor, it was amazing to watch the people who worked on our kitchen renovation.

The guys basically put the kitchen together from scratch, without benefit of instructions (or, somewhat disconcertingly, detailed plans of any kind), using an awesome variety of specialized power tools the likes of which I had never seen.  I was unable to name many of these implements, much less guess their purpose.  I am reasonably certain, however, that none of them would be allowed through security at the airport.

These craftsmen erected ceilings, yanked out windows, created walls were there were no walls before, installed lighting fixtures using actual wiring...all the while chatting amiably among themselves, often in a language I didn’t understand.  I think it was a foreign language, but they could have just been talking construction-ese and I wouldn’t have understood that, either.  Even more incredibly, I never once heard one of them yell out something like, "Dammit, I put that cabinet door on backwards!"  Not that I’ve ever done anything like that.

Find out what's happening in Stamfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Mike, one of the partners running the job, even had this really cool Transformers kind of truck with like a million compartments containing every hand tool you can imagine. It was like a rolling Home Depot, except that he seemed to be able to actually find stuff.

For much of the job, I couldn’t really observe what they were doing, because they had put these plastic sheets over the doorways to keep the dust in.  Or to protect their secrets.  All I know is that there was an awful lot of banging and whirring and electric guitars (one of the guys liked listening to THE FOX–the local classic rock station).

Find out what's happening in Stamfordwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that this was actually getting done by people who had somehow acquired the skills and expertise to do it.  The ability to accomplish something like this was so far beyond my knowledge bank, they might as well have been assembling the space shuttle behind that plastic curtain.

The only person I know personally who can do half of this stuff is my brother-in-law Gary, who learned most of it from his father.  (My father, who sold deli meats, once  tried to teach me the difference between olive loaf and head cheese, and I didn’t even learn that, because, to me, they were both equally disgusting.)

So I wondered if the guys in my kitchen learned their skills from their fathers, if the ability to build things is some old-world wisdom that has been passed down through the ages.  I know there is also a genetic factor; you can learn the skills, I guess, but you have to be born with a sort of fearlessness to take on these kinds of projects and not be afraid you’ll screw it up.

That gene does not run in my family.  I believe I am descended from nomads who would move from place to place, not to follow food, but because they didn’t know how to assemble any permanent structures.

For more on our adventures as first-time homeowners at age 57, and moving to Stamford, visit http://theupsizers.wordpress.com/

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?