My uncle was a mechanical genius

[Garth Libre]

My uncle was a mechanical genius even as a child. He built his own radios as a boy, eventually became a mechanical engineer who helped design missile guidance systems to win WWII. When you went to his house he had a half dozen cuckoo clocks he restored on display. He even had a working pinball machine and an HO railroad set that measured about 10 x 30 in the basement. It had banks of switch tracks and it astonished all the relatives at Thanksgiving. He eventually rose to be the Vice President of General Dynamics, an aerospace company based in New Jersey.

When I grew up in Manhattan, the best I could do was to have a small railroad set with 4 switch tracks. I did however do all the work on my bicycles and refinished a couple of old wooden bookcases. I rebuilt my first engine on an old MGB the first year I got my drivers license, but my economic situation being what it was I could only earn a two year Associate college degree while working days. I wanted to become a mechanical engineer but I struggled with advanced math, like calculus, and chemistry was a bore to me. Eventually, I did pass the test to build the Apache helicopter for Teledyne Ryan in San Diego, but I never took the job because I had previously agreed to give Hyatt hotels a two week notice where I worked as a wine steward. By that time, they had offered the job to someone else farther down the list of exam scores. When you snooze you lose they told me. Without an advanced college degree I always had to take lesser jobs than my famous uncle. I finished my career doing spot checks on taxi cabs and school buses as a transportation officer in Miami's Dade County.

I wish my uncle could have seen how self taught I managed to rewire a house or two, do basic plumbing jobs and spectacular landscaping with the aid of my Kubota tractor. We even have a four thousand gallon waterfall fish pond, fully landscaped that my wife and I designed. My uncle would be proud. Working with your hands is a skill sorely lacking in most people who drive around thinking that "modern cars are too complex to work on". What a bunch of b.s. ! In many ways, these old Ford Rangers are easier to work on. You'll never have to rebuild a carburetor, or set points, and nowadays the finicky rear drum brakes have all but disappeared, but I'll leave automatic transmission work to the bravest amongst us. Clutches and pressure plates are tricky enough. Sometimes, it makes sense to let someone else do the work. My wife was a trained carpenter in Germany, but she's too busy to do that kind of work now. She did just help me lay a bamboo floor in the upstairs guest room yesterday. Those German high standard they are so famous for left her busy looking for some "flubs" in the baseboards I covered up with a little caulk. It will never be seen - no one will ever know. I bet there are even a few flubs being passed over today at Teledyne Ryan.

 

[DILLARD000]

Simular story here.
Father was a good hardworking man who most importantly taught me steady discipline+responsibility;
uncle was a WW2 army vet, jungle warfare island hopping in the Pacific, then a mechanic in the preAirForce ArmyAirCorp.
From a youg age, both taught me how to work on vehicles, do carpentry, & lots of other things.
Americans that survived the GreatDepression & fought WW2, were definitely the "Greatest Generation".
Think of them both every time I turn a wrench or swing a hammer; try to pass on to my kids\grandkids their "can do" spirit.

 

[Snoranger]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum. It's breathtaking - I suggest you try it.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Nothing overly impressive in my background other than my dad was big into learning all you can. He did concrete work for a living for over 30 years and did it well, always working to learn how to improve and do it better. None of the other local concrete guys made any effort beyond maybe becoming ACI certified (American Concrete Institute). Dad never got certified and did better work than those who were because they obviously didn’t learn anything other than how to pass the test. A bit of dad has rubbed off after working with dad for over 11 years and now I can blow past someone doing concrete work at 40 mph and be able to tell if they are doing it wrong and what.

I have a wide range of knowledge on a lot of subjects, anything that interests me I take a little time to learn a few things about the subject. A lot of my interests have some overlap, like my locksmithing, it carries over into both automotive and construction.

 

[sgtsandman]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum. It's breathtaking - I suggest you try it.

 

[19Walt93]

My father drove a Jeep out of a landing craft onto Omaha beach on D Day, rode and raced Indian Motorcycles, and made his living for years after WW II playing pool. He met my mother because her older brother couldn't figure out how to get the rear wheel off her Indian to change a tire and asked him to look at it. He worked in woolen mills and had a union attitude-"40 hrs is enough" and "that's not my job". We didn't get along too well.
My uncle was what would become an Airborne Ranger in the Army and was shot through his lower back by a 12 year old German boy near the end of the war. He was told he wouldn't walk again and took it as a challenge. He retired form our local Buick-Olds dealer as the service manager after about 40 years. He built a snow blower 8 ft wide on a truck chassis using a straight 8 Buick to spin the impeller. After retirement he bought and early 70's Toyota pickup and put it on a Jeep chassis so he could have 4 wheel drive. He regretted using the Jeep 3 speed instead of the Toyota 4 speed because the Toyota engine(he called it a corn popper) didn't have enough torque to handle the ratio gaps in the 3 speed. Working at the GM dealer, he raced Ford flathead powered "jalopies" with numbers 88 and 98 on them. I don't know if the Olds dealer paid him to use those numbers or not. He was diabetic and controlled it with diet- he drank Tab and Fresca which was another indication of his toughness. He loaned me a bunch of metric tools when I dragged my first beetle home.

 

[holyford86]

My father is the son of a small farmer and the work ethic that followed. He spent all of my childhood being the donkey chasing the carrot and decided to part ways with my mother when I was about 11 years old. He has a mechanical aptitude and I seem to have inherited that, I've been a fleet mechanic for most of my adult life and work on anything from lawnmowers to school buses. I'm mostly self taught though, along with a helping hand from this web forum. I'm not sure how proud dad would be as we haven't spoken in many years and he had maintained that I was "fucked in the head" (I've got a learning disability that shares many traits with autisim).

Mom was an art teacher and just retired this past summer, she restored most of her own house, only paying a contractor for the big jobs she couldn't handle. She taught me a lot about spatial awareness and did a good job helping me surround myself with people I could learn from when I was a kid, along with teaching me all of the life skills and such that many learn from their parents. She is proud of what I've done, I usually visit for dinner around once a week and she's starting to finish some of the unfinished house projects in her free time.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum. It's breathtaking - I suggest you try it.

Really, for you that is pretty plausible.

 

[oldgeek]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum. It's breathtaking - I suggest you try it.

I thought your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.

 

[Snoranger]

Really, for you that is pretty plausible.

It’s not too far off.

I thought your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.

That sounds like something a French knight would say.

 

[Curious Hound]

Is this another "pointless thread"???

 

[superj]

I never knew anything about my grandpa, on my dad's side, other than he was always smiling and loved us. After he passed away, my dad and i were going through records and found his miltary stuff. He went into the navy as an electrician. He was a submariner and also worked on the space shuttles. My dad and i never knew he worked on shuttles. Of course, my dad knew he was a submariner though.
My dad did 20 something years in the marines and retired a master sargeant. He said he regretted retiring because he loved being in the marines but my younger brother, and his mom were nagging him to retire. Turns out it was just so she could get everything from his retirement. He was with 2 mef for the last 8 years of his time in and the colonel called him in about two weeks after he turned in his retirement packet and said dad finally made sergeant major. But since he was retiring, you dont get that without staying. Dad says he wishes he would have taken it and just stayed in the marines till they kicked him out.


I never aspired to anything but being happy. I just wish to be able to pay the bills and stay healthy. I ride my bicycle around and love my job working on helicopters. That is good enough for me

 

[oldgeek]

There had been a strain between my father and me. The development of tablets has been going on for a long time. We were at loggerheads over the script language. I was always wanting what was new and he was stuck in the old times.

Here it was, it came out of beta. Cuneiform 1.0. Autocorrect wasn't the best, but we were working on it. Dad was insistent to stay with Hieroglyphic 12.2. It was cumbersome. And the spelling rules..... Eye before Bee except after Sea. Ok, it had style. It had color. But you gotta go with the future!

 

[Blmpkn]

Humans are only here because the scumdogs of the universe came here and had their way with apes.

 

[DILLARD000]

The details of my life are quite inconsequential... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum. It's breathtaking - I suggest you try it.

You've got much to be proud of & a novel that should be written, pubilshed & made into a movie !!!