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4 ~ Wednesday, May 22, 1991 - North Shore News

The power and the glory

of the handyman game

I'M NOT much of a handyman, but I do get the urge

every once in a while.

Urge? Maybe hunger is a better
word. This is primeval stuff: the
urge to splinter wood and drive
spikes into it and lift heavy,
awkward objects, all the time risk-
ing bloody dismemberment or
splayed thumbs.

What drives a man to thus ex-
pose himself to danger in his own
back yard or garage?

I believe it is nothing less than
the desire to recreate reality in a
more favorable mode.

A recent article in The Globe
reported that the home handyman
syndrome has moved in from the
obscurity of the fringe to the
mainstream. So we are all getting
into the game.

Part of the reason, | believe, is
the equipment that’s around now.
If they can make power saws,
with their jagged disk-teeth whirl-
ing in a blur of matter-ripping
destruction, so idiot-proof that
even | can use it without maiming
myself, then the world is ready to
be built anew by armies of klutzy
carpenters with high-tech tools.

I guess what has happened to
the of world of home projects is
roughly what happened to the act
of war, as demonstrated by the
laying-to-waste of Iraq and
Kuwait.

The equipment is so impressive.
It makes the next-tu-impossible
task of ousting an entrenched
super-army of desert warfare
veterans, for instance, « piece of
cake.

All you need is enough carpet
bombing from safe altitudes with
no aerial opposition and a few
smart missiles to make sure this
happens.

On the home front, a similar
quantum leap in technology has
taken place.

It used to be, when [ got the
handyman urge — ar, probably
more often, when I was coaxed
into it by an offspring’s mother —
the task was bound to be long and
bloody.

Being too cheap to buy a whole
pile of power tools for ‘‘just one
project,’’ [ limited myself to hand
saws and hand drills and
screwdrivers.

Just cutting a sheet of plywood
became an epic chapter in a
millenia-long human struggle to
escape the merciless grip of an
obstinate and implacable nature.

Little wonder, after one of these
exquisite painful amateur-home-
handyman-with-inadequate-tools
experiences, that 1 immediately
swore off any more sawing or
hammering ever again so long as |
lived.

Then, last Christmas, my step-

hor!NN
Dorey

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Bob
Hunter

STRICTLY PERSONAL

father bought me a set of power
tools.

Wow!

I know I’m coming upon this
discovery rather late in life, but
that’s OK because I savor it more
this way. At least that’s my ra-
tionalization. And rationalizing is
one thing I’m definitely good at.

Like, I turn this seven-and-a-
quarter-inch circular saw on, for
instance, and goodbye two-by-
fours, planks, plywood sheets,
even treated tie beams. Fram,
zing, schreech. It’s done.

Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t
discover the ecstasy and glory of
power tools until now.

Just in the last four weekends, !
have zanged through several large
piles of beams and planks and
sheets of various kinds of wooden
material.

The back yard has suddenly been
populated with dozens of cedar
planters, composting boxes, raised
gardens and new benches.

None of this is art, you under-
stand. But the pieces mainly fit.

introducing the
Newly Designed
1982 BMW 325i

Celebrating the 25th
anniversary of its first
compact sports
sedan, the 1602,
BMW Canada proudly
announces the intro-
duction of ihe totally
redesigned 325). As
with ils predecessors,
this third generation 3-
Series is an evolution
of BMW automotive
design. Providing a
harmonious balance
between spacious

You can climb all over this stuff
and it won’t break. You would
have to go to a considerable
amount of trouble to tear il all
apart.

} have probably overbuilt
everything by a considerable fac-
tor, but this is not the point. Lam
allowed by social convention to
take guests out into the garden
and show them my works.

It’s not quite an attitude of
“‘look-upon-my-works-ye-
mighty-and-despair."* But close
enough.

Guests are allowed to note that
the right angles are mostly right
angles and in some places the
planking actually matches up.

We, the handymen, will allow
with a sort chuckle that the back
of the raised garden is technically
six inches lower than the front,
but then, didn’t the Zen masters
say you should always leave a
flaw in your work to remind us of
nature’s unpredictability.

One hates to think that more
hydro dams or coal-fired or nu-
clear generation stations will have
to be built to satisfy my urge to
use power tools, or that entire
old-growth forests will be deci-
mated to satisfy my sudden need
for more decking, more fencing,
more raised gardens.

That’s what I meant about it
being a good thing | didn’t
discover power tools until now.
Having acquired this sort of tech-
nology, I'm really in a jam. It’s
like not being able to dis-invent
the atomic bomb. The power saw
is with us for the rest of time.

1 would like to think that I will
move back down to hand tools.
Maybe some day I'll be forced to
by che price of electricity. But I
don’t think Ill be able to kick the
habit voluntarily. Not now that
I’ve acquired it. .

Fram, zing, schreech. Zang.
Maybe I'll rebuild everything!

CEE OS:

=!
ne Oe

design, agile handling
and dynamic perfor-
mance, the 1992 325i
continues to set new
standards in an auto-
motive category it
helped launch over a
quarter of a century
before.

PARK SHORE BMW

1500 FELL AVE. NORTH VANCOUVER

* Saturday May 25th 9:00 am to 6:00 pm only

a * NET OF ALL PROGRAMS - INCLUDES FREIGHT & P.D.1. - Di # 7496

— CrownLife
PARTICIPACTION
CHALLENGE

Wednesday, May 29 Dp
1991 eaanceacnion a,

Park Shore Motors Introduces

The New
BMW 3
Series

Please join us at our showrooms
to celebrate this event.

Thursday, May 23, 1991
6:00 - 9:00 p.m.

Park Shore Motors Ltd.
1500 Fell Avenue
North Vancouver

V7P 3E7

985-9344