Technical difficulties....

...please stand by...

Nah, not really, but Microsoft did one of those OS upgrades last week and I expected the worst. Took forever. Still, when I consider how many people use MS software, how much crap we all download on our PCs of varied and sundry levels of compatibility and soundness, it's a miracle these upgrades take at all.

My dad could not have fixed a computer, I'm sure. He died before they really became a thing, back when the Internet was barely more than a military concoction and home computers were for people who wanted a thousand-dollar paperweight. I wonder what he would have made of all this.

He was a tool guy, a man who worked with his hands, and he could fix anything. And if he couldn't, because it required more technical expertise outside his field, he could bring in one of his pals. He always knew someone on The Job who could handle what he couldn't, and vice versa. They weren't really social guys, but they'd go to one another's houses when a project needed doing.

Toward the end of his life he told me that he couldn't fix cars anymore, that the computers in them would get messed up if he tried. I was stunned. He had been fixing cars since he was a kid, knew all the parts and what they were for, and he could handle anything that didn't require the engine block to be hauled out. But this is where we are now. Everything is Smart, which is rendering us dumb. I'm lucky if I know what hole to pour the wiper fluid in.

I know a few guys who tinker on their vehicles, guys like my dad who could probably build one from scratch if they had the right tools and the time (what American boy hasn't dreamed of building his own Centaur -- although it would be illegal now in most states to take it one the road, I'm sure). But all of them work on pre-1980 vehicles. There will always be car guys tinkering on cars, but I expect eventually all those cars will be Theseus's ships, philosophical conundrums with no original parts.

Among many things I would do differently were I to live this life again, though, would be to pay attention to my dad when he was doing home projects. He was a terrible teacher but I was the absolute worst student. Now I'm paying for it. Oh, sure, I can get a PC to work ("Here's the start button!"), but fix a lamp? Dude, better get one of those Radio Shack nerds in.

Happy Father's Day to all the dads. My heart was busted when my dad died. My car, my computer, and my heart are still the only things around here he couldn't fix.