The skills of youth

Over the past week I have been putting my youth to good use.  That is; I've been keeping our cars running.  Last Saturday I spent the morning in a friend's garage replacing the gas tank, fuel pump, gauge and filter in Pete our '99 Suburban.  I would have been in a world of hurt trying to do it without Al - but I would not have attempted it without my teenage years of working on old cars.

No sooner than Pete was feeling better (no longer leaking gas out of a rusted through gas tank) than I noticed some dark spots on the driveway under out minivan.  A day later they were not dots, but dark patches, and then it was watching the oil drip from the car to the ground... something profound was wrong, and we were back to one vehicle.  However, the combination of nice weather and my mechanical experience joined today to discover a crack in the oil cooler.  I didn't need to go to a shop to find the problem, I didn't need to take it to a mechanic to get it fixed - for this one I didn't even need Al.

I was just doing what I enjoyed as a kid.  Taking apart anything mechanical, and then figuring out how to get it back together - but these are noticeably useful skills now.  Those summers on maintenance crews were not glamorous, but now I can build, repair, paint, replace all sorts of things which I wouldn't have the confidence to do otherwise.  Why blog about this, is this to say how great I am - not at all.  It is about what so many people think their kids should be doing...

I can't tell you how many men today tell me how much they wish they knew how to do these practical things.  Know what almost all of them were doing while I was being a mechanical geek?  Playing sports.   I know I'm out of sync with my surrounds, but I still can't figure out the obsession with chasing a ball around a field.  I work really hard to not be down on sports, but it requires a great deal of mental energy.  I am not naturally athletic, I'm not really very competitive, I didn't grow up in the suburbs - and while my parents were very athletic in high school and college, they never did anything to encourage us kids into sports.  So I naturally don't connect with sports, but when I look at it objectively it is hard for me to find the full value so many assign to them.  I hear the support of team building, teaching values, staying fit, staying out of trouble, etc...but I always come away thinking there must be better ways.

For some kids, they are athletes, and that is great.  And I'm definitely not saying everyone should lose their passion for competitive sports, but into what should we be encouraging our children?  Should it be the norm?  How long is chasing a ball truly important?


ps.  Tobiah is signed up for the spring soccer rec league.