Tools of the Trade

 

What’s your ‘thing’. Everyone has a ‘thing’. That thing that perks your interest and maintains your focus.

To some it is cooking. If you picked it up from a cookbook or just a variation to feed a family or pass-me-down from recipes of old, we all have to eat and preparing food to devour is a common task.

Cooking can be a slap-it-in-the-microwave and eat whatever comes out or can be dedicated serving of fine preparation with knowledge of ingredients and fresh items perhaps from the garden. There are enough cooking shows to tell you what to do and don’t to make a meal only the finest palate will appreciate. Whether cooking for two or a family gathering, the proper tools must be available to chop and dice and stir and combine and simmer and fry and bake to proper temperature. Condiments and spices must be readily available for the tasting and adjustment before the final presentation on plate. This cooking ‘thing’ could lead into an addiction to wine.

Maybe sewing is your ‘thing’. We all purchase clothing that was made somewhere else and every day we get a tear or rip or lose a button. The seamstress ability to repair and thus long the garment is a value attended to some. Whether hand sewn or machine there is a skill and working with materials and combining them into wearable clothing. The simple needle and thread have turned into a veritable array of needle sizes and threats that go from the finest silk to something the weight of string. Machines can become computer complex with sergers and there must be proper lighting.

This hand-held activity can lead into knitting and crochet with the various needle sizes and yarn in bundles and colors and weights and textures. Though time consuming, there is no better gift for winter than a handmade scarf or gloves.

If your ‘thing’ is working with wood, the options for tools are enormous. Box stores like Lowes or Home Depot have aisles full of screwdrivers, pliers, hammers, saws and other devices to gouge, cut, shave or otherwise make a tree into a table or a toothpick. The shop will become full of sawdust so a vacuuming system must be used when no rug vac will work or sweeping with a broom is too old school.

Working on your car in the garage is your ‘thing’, it can be an extraction from family chores and an excuse to be a DIY instead of taking it into the shop. Many boys have bonded with there fathers staring under the hood trying to solve some problem and handing the proper tool like a surgeon in an operation until the problems required a degree from MIT to solve. This also require getting oil all over your clothing so your mother has an excuse to go shopping for replacements (because she doesn’t sew).

I used to repair my bikes…then. A bike is a simple vehicle with a frame, handlebars, peddles and a chain to move forward. Refilling a tire was a simple hand pump and if I didn’t have the proper size (metric or the US old English Imperial measure of inches and pound) to take into the local bike shop that had all the correct tools and parts and expertise worth the task to fix it right the first time.

As an artist, I could hold a pencil and a piece of paper and make a line. Elementary skills were to slap paint on canvas or hammer thin metal or slice wood or find out there are all sorts of specialize tools to accomplish the task. There are compasses and T-squares and triangles and ink pens and sharp knives and even large flat tables to draw on. Tools like air brushes and cameras could become expensive for the starving artist. Then, the digital computer arrived. The screen held ALL the tools in one box.

I appreciate musical instruments. I won’t attempt to construct one but marvel at those who do. There are those who can repeatedly use their hands to touch and carve wood by hand to pass to another to make a memorable sound. This ‘thing’ of constructing an instrument out of a tree was admirable when one person used hand tools and experience to shave off that last piece to create another tool for a musician to use.

Then the musician had to collect the tools to carry their instrument, music stands to read the black dots on the paper, an ultimate variety of plastic picks and steel or catgut strings and an array of polishing materials and humidifiers to keep the sound pristine.

If sports are your ‘thing,’ there are manufacturers who constantly tweak bats and balls and gloves and shoes and helmets to promise you a better score. If traveling is your ‘thing’, warehouses are full of suitcases, water bottles, sunglasses and straw hats, pillows, soft shoes and cameras to make your visits to other locations successful and enjoyable.

So, this Christmas, give tools. It will make manufactures, retailers and delivery people happy and busy. Your purchase of a X21 Drill Press or a pair of zircon encrusted tweezers will not only keep the economy rolling, but will bring a smile when the package is opened to be used for years to come (or sit on a shelf gathering dust?).