The Shit My 97 Year Young Pop Does

My Pop talks a lot, but he also works a lot – at 97, he does a small ‘job’ everyday to keep his 5 acre property, machinery, equipment, home and outbuildings up, still planning and repairing for the future. He’s lived here since 1940 and has had to be very resourceful, relying on his own skill and ability to do repairs.

Now, at 97 he always needs my help at some time during his projects, either because every project a person undertakes seems to require 3 hands – or because he’s trying to teach me everything about his entire operation. He likes to make things work when they break down, but if he can’t fix something, he makes a ‘work around’. Pop says he had no idea he’d live this long and everything he built to last his lifetime is wearing out.

His old Case backhoe is impossible to get parts for and the brake is stuck on one rear wheel. He knows he can fix it but requires someone strong to take it apart so he can clean it up to get it working smoothly. He knows Graeme will be here sometime in the spring or summer, at which time they will do the repair, but in the meantime he’s concerned about launching our boats in the spring if Graeme isn’t here to fix the brakes, and decided to work on the ‘backup system’ in the last few days.

Being a resort owner, Pop watched people launching their boats on his cement boat launching ramp over the last 40+ years. Actually, a group of us used to sit near the boat launching ramp on a Friday afternoon/evening to watch as the campers came in (and usually put on a spectacle). Imagine a 20 foot motorhome with an 18 foot boat – first off having to turn around in the driveway with an apple tree to navigate round and a curved driveway to back down to the ramp. The trailers jackknifed, went in the ditches, bumped into stumps and went off the ramp into the beach gravel, eventually being launched but with that sort of pressure, it was seldom that a boat was launched smoothly. It usually included a lot of yelling, swearing and embarrassment. It was great entertainment!

Over the years the drivers improved, the wives learned to run the boats or the trucks and people started helping others. One very inventive person put sticks with orange paint on his boat trailer and stuck them out the sides so he could see where his narrow trailer was behind his big motorhome. Another ‘old-timer’ put a trailer hitch on the front of his motorhome and that worked so well for launching that he was in high demand on a Friday night to help others.

Pop took note of that, and when he bought his new motorhome in 1990 he made a hitch for the front of it and installed it, but realized afterward that he needed holes in it for the trailer safety chains to attach. For whatever reason, he never actually completed it or used it but has talked about how easy it makes the boat launching process.

So with the backhoe temporarily out of commission Pop decided to complete his motorhome trailer hitch. He put it on the motorhome a number of years ago so he knew he could take it off. One day while I was out he did that and took it to the shop to drill 2 safety chain holes back of the ball hole. He then took it over to my boat trailer to make sure the holes were large enough for my safety chains to fit through. The next day he asked if I would help him put it back on the motorhome – he had tried but the washers and nuts had to be put on the bolt behind the bumper – in a very tight spot. He lost a nut while trying and finally had to give up. It turned out that it took a few days before we had time and the weather was decent.

We went out this morning in the bright sunlight to work on it. I was able to put the locking washer and a nut on the bottom bolt with little trouble. BUT, the back of the top bolt was very difficult to reach even with my small fingers and hand. It took a few tries to get the washer on, as it slipped out of my fingers over and over. The nut was bigger than the washer and harder to hold between my index and middle finger of my left hand while trying to get it in place so I could screw the bolt into it with my right hand. There was no way to get my thumb into the spot to help hold it, and I dropped the nut at least 17 times, lost it in the grass, found it, tried some more and was nearly ready to give up. Only problem was that I knew I couldn’t quit because Pop – or someone else had got it on and tightened once long ago – so I knew it was possible.

Pop said I’d get it and he was right. Eventually, I did and he used the wrench to tighten the bolt. As he was tightening the bottom bolt, he had a very small tight area to work and the wrench kept slipping off the bolt. He asked me to hold it in place and he got out the hammer to hit the wrench to get it good and tight. This hitch is going to hold the weight of the trailer and boat on a slope, so it has to be very secure. I was hoping he wasn’t going to get me in the teeth with the hammer and moved my head back slightly but held tight to the wrench with my fingers. Of course with the force of the hammer it knocked the wrench out of my fingers and my thumbnail slammed into the metal of the hitch. It felt like the wrench and the hammer hit my thumbnail.

Ouch – Solar Nails shatter when the strength of a 97 year old with a purpose comes in contact with the weakness of vanity!

The shit my 97 year young Pop does…