My dad was a mechanic and my happiest childhood memories are of “helping” him. He was the king of make do with what you have, and paying someone else to fix something was unheard of. Anything broken can be fixed. I tried to pass it on to my son but he has no interest. The younger generation who I call “The help desk generation” seems unable to function without having someone else to tell them what to do.
My earliest memories were under cars with my father.
Back in 73 at 4 or 5 years old, i was under vw beetles in the driveway of our apartment in iceland pulling engines, adjusting valves, changing oil screens etc...
All the tv shows that depicted incompetant dads screwing up the tv or the plumbing, lights exploding from a lack of skill... never made any sense to me. My dad regularly repaired everything... he was always building ham radio stuff, as well. I have soooo many ham radio setups in my shop i know nothing about.
He was maintenance officer in the air force, repairing jets, and writing service manuals for the f4 and the f16... maybe the 15 also, but i think that was a navy plane... we got evacuated from Iran in 79, dad went back and helped the first set of hostages escape, then was captured and tortured there...
Anyway, in 80, we opened an engine repair company in washington, kept it up when we moved to south dakota, then took over grandpas hvac company in 84...
Been here ever since.
Dad never really taught me. He taught my big brother... i just understood what was needed. I soaked up second hand training as it came.
I have fond memories of my big brother trying to learn about valve lash and magneto timing, spring rates, and front end lift... and id just do it without being tought.
When it came to hvac stuff, dad would teach me service, relays, control wiring, and it just made sense to me.
Grandpa would show me high voltage wiring, service drop stuff, one day i spooled out a long 480V 3phas run around 300' 500kcmill i thing.
Anyway, i counted up the conduit joints fittings, etc, spooled out the runs, laid em on the tarmac, and started the pull.
When finished, i had to cut 3" off the meter side, and 14" off the panel side, and grandpa yelled at me like i had burned down the building...
He said, "DONT EVER CUT WIRE SO CLOSE! I WANT 3' MINIMUM EXCESS ON BOTH ENDS!"