The guy who got me started
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By STEVE BATIE
Lee Newspapers
Wednesday, October 1, 2008 1:05 PM CDT
LINCOLN, Neb. -- My handyman is gone.
He was the guy who first taught me about studs and shims and concrete lags back when we were building the "shed" that actually turned out to be a surprise playhouse.
(Later, of course, it did become a shed — after the boys had grown too big to be interested in a tiny cottage in the backyard and had turned instead to nearby vacant lots and grade-school ball diamonds.)
He was the guy who built my "cage."
It’s not as bad as it sounds.
The house had no fenced yard, and you don’t want to fence a yard you’re only renting. Instead, he built a big box out of 2-by-2s and covered the walls and top with chicken wire.
Drop such a contraption over someone who’s big enough to push it around the yard but not strong enough to lift it, and you have a pretty good toddler encapsulation unit.
By the time the toddler figures out his escape route, you swap it to some buddy for a tricycle and the kid has the freedom of the neighborhood sidewalks forevermore.
He was the guy who showed me how to drive a nail (one rap to set the nail, then just three more whacks to drive it home; grip the end of the handle for better leverage and more power — an early introduction to physics).
How to saw a plank (cut with the push, not with the pull; he’d never heard of Japanese saws).
How to drive screws (lefty loosey, righty tighty); how to finish concrete; how to shingle a roof.
He gave me my first grown-up hammer, my first wrenches, my first circular saw.
When it came to gardening, he was a great believer in the power of manure, which apparently must be flung by children enslaved for that purpose from the box of a pickup parked in the alley on the sunniest, sweatiest day June on the Great Plains.
The tomato vines grew past all understanding that summer, producing not a single fruit. But the second year was fantastic.
He never saw a tree that didn’t need pruning or a lawn that didn’t need mowing. He kept his blades sharp and his bearings greased and his gas can at the ready.
(I never did fulfill the promise I made to buy him a forest and a pruning saw as a retirement present.)
It took him years after he had grown too stiff to mow his own lawn to find someone else picky enough to suit him. I never really got the hang of it, and to look at the wavy tire tracks and tufts of grass left in my wake would bring tears to his eyes.
He was the driveway mechanic, the welder, the tinsmith. He knew a little about plumbing and a little about electricity and exactly how far to go before calling in the professionals.
(Of course, sometimes he went a little past that point of no return. Don’t we all?)
He was a great believer in the sustainability of aluminum paint, and the walls of his garage sparkle to this day like the inside of a giant Christmas ornament.
The handles of his hammers and wrenches and saws now fit my hand as perfectly as they once did his own, tools that will see many more years of service before they will be passed on to yet another handyman.
Lyle Chester Batie, born July 12, 1922, on the family farm near Overton, Neb., died at 9:17 a.m. on Sept. 15, 2008, in Grand Island, some 60 miles down the freeway.
My handyman is gone.
I hope he had time to teach me everything he knew.
But I doubt it.
Send your home repair and remodeling questions to: HouseWorks, P.O. Box 81609, Lincoln, NE 68501, or e-mail: houseworks@journalstar.com.
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