Time with Fathers
Some days I resent moving back to my home town. And some days are like today.
I stopped by my dad‘s to borrow a tool from him. It’s just the right amount of cold to be perfectly beautiful. We’re in the garage. A place I have marveled at since I was a child. So many tools and things stacked right to the ceiling. It is complete with little hidden side rooms stuffed with old tools he's purchased or made. It is an ode to human ingenuity.
This afternoon he shows me how to refill one pound containers of propane from a twenty pound tank. This is an unusual and potentially dangerous process with which most people don’t bother. It is more conveniently (and expensively) solved by buying new ones. But, at about eighty cents to refill compared to six dollars for a new can, it's an easy decision for my dad.
He shows me the metal stand that he built to hold the twenty pound propane tank. This probably took him half an hour to manufacture and it looks like a very short stool. Where the seat would be, a large metal tank sits inverted with a bright brass valve onto which the old, much smaller, empty tanks screw. He explains that the refill process is a gravity affair. Connect the empty tank, open the valve for two minutes; remove the empty, bleed the air, repeat twice more. Weighing after each fill until the tank reaches one pond, fourteen ounces.
He uses a small allen wrench and pokes at the valve to get it to seat if the smaller tank hisses when removed. It feels very hand-made. Which I suppose this all is. They probably make proper kits that cost thousands and skip the multiple connections. And the allen wrench.
He’s quite proud after eight tanks. He has spent about eight dollars for this affair. It would have been fifty dollars to just buy new ones.
We chat about the different projects that he plans to do when it warms in the spring. We discuss how he hopes my friend can come by and repair his failing heat pumps. The house gets very cold in this weather. Half is heated by a wood-burning stove. But the other half relies on these small canisters fueling a heater.
This reminds of my first childhood home burning down because of an electric heater. But I decide not to mention this to my dad. I'll save those memories for later.
Our conversation drifts to his too-many-things. Losing things and buying them a second time. What looks like a shop of riches is a bit of albatross to him. Which I can understand. I've lost my own tools in my tiny garage. Which is why I'm here. I am reminded that I need to borrow a tool and get something done back home.
Altogether, we enjoy the time together. I wish I had more time to do to just hang around him. I guess that I do, but I choose not too because I have some kind of dysfunction. It occurs to me how much I will regret this when he is gone in a few years. It's a good thing I came back home when I did.
Thanks for reading and sharing my beautiful lie.
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