{"id":887,"date":"2007-06-03T03:34:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-03T03:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=887"},"modified":"2007-06-03T03:34:00","modified_gmt":"2007-06-03T03:34:00","slug":"i-cant-do-what-my-father-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=887","title":{"rendered":"I Can’t Do What My Father Did"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another meme going around: “I can’t do one-quarter of the things my father can.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Fathers born in the 1940s or 50s–and please bear in mind that this will not apply to all of them–seem to demonstrate with much greater frequency the ability to ‘Take Care of Things’.<\/p>\n

Being in possession of this blanket set of skills crucial for the operational fluency of daily life, they become indispensable to the family unit, developing auras of respect and–notably–competence.<\/p>\n

They include, but are not limited to:<\/p>\n

* Plunger Operation
* Woodworking
* Toy Repair
* A knowledge of adhesives
<\/em><\/p>\n

Dad had me beat in one area: horsemanship. He could throw a double-diamond hitch on a pack horse in a snowstorm. I never learned any of that. <\/p>\n

I think I am his equal in the other stuff. Cars are more complicated now, so it’s mainly a matter of changing your own oil, checking tire pressure, and being aware of things changing for the worse. <\/p>\n

But wait. They’re talking about the guys my son’s age — if I had a son. Hmmm..<\/p>\n

Popular Mechanics<\/em>, as ever, stands ready to fill the gap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/b> I left out the Wiccan connection.<\/p>\n

Much of what I learned about woodworking in particular I learned in 7th and 8th-grade shop classes. And who was behind the push for such “manual” education in the schools? None other than Charles Godfrey Leland<\/a>, whose three books on Tuscan folklore, witchcraft, and the goddess Aradia helped fuel the 20th-century Wiccan revival.<\/p>\n

In Leland’s day, it was a rare kid who stayed in school after age 14. He believed that “manual arts” should be part of the curriculum, and he advocated for them a lot. <\/p>\n

Via Glenn Reynolds<\/a>. Men just want to be useful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another meme going around: “I can’t do one-quarter of the things my father can.” Fathers born in the 1940s or 50s–and please bear in mind that this will not apply to all of them–seem to demonstrate with much greater frequency the ability to ‘Take Care of Things’. Being in possession of this blanket set of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3,58],"class_list":["post-887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-blogging","tag-men"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-ej","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1264,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1264","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":0},"title":"Pagan Thoughts at the Parade of Lights","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Last fall I looked for Pagan virtues in a small-town \"Pioneer Day\" parade.Similar thoughts ran through my mind last night watching an even smaller town's \"Parade of Lights.\"The procession was about one block long: two pieces of fire apparatus, the local mountain search-and-rescue group (yellow jackets, hard hats, head lamps),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":975,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=975","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":1},"title":"Review: Apocalypto","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Not one to rush into things, I finally watched Mel Gibson's slightly a-historical movie of Mayan imperial collapse, Apocalypto, a gory but amazing adventure story.My father was a big fan of historian Will Durant, so I got the impact of the Durant epigram about the fall of empires at the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1263,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1263","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":2},"title":"Father Christmas Works the Bar Crowd","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Father Christmas makes his way through the bar after a small-town Parade of Lights (of which more later). No, that was Santa on the fire engine. Different demigod.","rel":"","context":"In \"Yule\"","block_context":{"text":"Yule","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=yule"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1470,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1470","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":3},"title":"Could a Young Guy be so Cynical about Social Media?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We are to believe that the author of \"Six Things Social Media Can't Do for Your Business\" is only 18? He sounds like another middle-aged cynic who has seen too many new-technology parades pass down Main Street, leaving only manure piles in their wake.","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3578,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3578","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":4},"title":"Father Christmas in the Wild","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Just to put you in the holiday mood. You don't think that he just appears out of nowhere, do you? Want more?","rel":"","context":"In \"Yule\"","block_context":{"text":"Yule","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=yule"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6901,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6901","url_meta":{"origin":887,"position":5},"title":"She Started Life as “Astarte Lulu” . . .","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 8, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":". . . and ended it as \"Louise.\" But read who her father was. I don't see any family resemblance though. Still, there is a story here!","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"Muhler20141207_20141206","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Muhler20141207_20141206-111x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}