At age 11, I was taught to weld two pieces of metal together like an “A” without the middle, as this: /\. Every time I finished the bead, Pop would pound down on it with a 20-pound sledge. It broke. Countless times I failed.
Between each time, Pop would hold the two pieces in each of his massive, calloused hands and point out the places that I didn’t get enough heat, or wasn’t keeping my hands steady. Eventually, the metal bent, and the bead held. I learned to troubleshoot, adjust, and correct.
At 13 I was welding for the public. When most young boys my age were playing sports or hunting with their fathers–or doing what I thought was “having fun”–I was stuck in a welding shop, working my tired arse off from the time school was out until dark-thirty. I was bitter.
I got paid (for the first two years) $150 per month. Out of that, I paid my tuition at the private school Pop had helped build, literally. The swing-sets, basketball goals, see-saws, you name it, those were “donations in kind from Nix Welding Shop” I had to buy my own lunches, and pay to join any sort of clubs (e.g., glee club) with anything extra I could save. That left little money for me to spend on my comic book (Flash, Green Lantern, and the occasional Haunted Tank) collection. I was bitter.
At 15, once I passed my driver’s license test, Pop began to pay me half my labor. In 1978, as a ninth-grade student, I was paid $9 per hour. At the same time, Pop told me to choose (only) one sport. He allowed me to play one more year of every sport, to make up my mind. I dropped baseball, basketball, and track; I stuck with American football. While the other young men in my class were playing those sports I had dropped, I left school on those days early. I worked from noon-ish to dark-thirty. I was bitter.
Some of my classmates’ parents bought them cars or pickups to drive. I bought my own, and I paid for my own insurance on that vehicle. Those expenses ate into my “savings” and I complained relentlessly to Pop, because he wouldn’t pay me more, or at least treat me “like a son rather than an employee.” He may have listened, but he didn’t budge. The only times I felt we had a father-son relationship was when the weather was too bad to work. During those times, we played Scrabble. I learned to read upside-down, and I learned to challenge. Yet, I was bitter.
We guaranteed everything we put out. For the first few years of my welding career that meant I lost money every single time a customer returned with something I’d built or repaired. There were no exceptions; if it came from Pop’s shop it had to be top quality. Our integrity was at stake. I had to get better. That meant more practice which translated into less time for “me”. Yes, bitterness again.
I began filing taxes and doing the “office management” for Pop’s Welding shop at 16 years of age. Sending out statements, driving to collect money from customers that hadn’t paid after 30 days, all those activities had to be performed on Saturday afternoons, or Sundays, between church services. I had precious little time for homework, much less for leisure reading or my new hobby, listening to and “making” music with my great Uncle Ralph. I also began to sing lead for local bands, it was difficult to find time to practice. I was bitter because I had to work so much when others had so much time to “play.”
Oh, then there was “the garden.” Pop wasn’t happy growing enough just to fill our two freezers. He felt his garden had to feed people within 10-miles driving distance. He planted things that others didn’t grow: Brussel’s sprouts, asparagus, carrots, unique beans, special cabbages and lettuces and (I thought then) every pea known to mankind. And Corn. Yes, we needed corn for the hogs we raised (the hogs I’d slopped every morning since I was old enough to drag 5-gallon buckets of leftover food from ours, Granma’s and Granny’s houses). It seemed there was never “personal” time for anything I wanted to do. Yeah, bitterness.
Years later, when I look back on the lessons I learned, I am quite simply in awe of the quantity. I wonder, without the bitterness of the time, how much more I might have learned? There is very little I do not know how to do. Despite being an “office boy” for most of the time since 1988, I generally “fix” stuff for myself. Unless there is a license required, I do anything that our house needs. I maintain our vehicles. I grow vegetables that we cannot buy locally, or that are too modified to look or taste safe. If I have access to a welding machine, I can basically build anything I might want or need. I can put tie-wire on a swing-bearing that goes out on the tip-top of the Teton Mountains, and drive my vehicle back home because everything is closed on Sunday.
On Father’s day, I look back and I am glad, thankful, and I am not bitter. No, not everyday was rosy, and not every lesson learned was from positive role-modeling. However, there is no doubt that I would not have attained the levels of success I have achieved thus far in my life without many of those hard, time-consuming lessons from Pop.
After 16 years of life without you, you are even more appreciated, you are sorely missed, and you are still teaching me, Jerry Nix.