Originally posted on 05 30-07:
One of the most common and debilitating human delusions is that we have made our selves out of whole cloth. This delusion is at the root of many of our problems. It underlies taking pride in our accomplishments and being ashamed of our shortcomings, with all the resultant anguish and distress. One of the antidotes to this delusion is to look for the roots of our values, behaviors, preferences, etc. in our personal history. Who were our role models, and how have they shaped us? Here’s an example from my own history:
My dad’s middle name was Hatcher, and that’s what everyone called him; sometimes “Hatch.” He only had a 3rd grade education, but he grew up on a farm in Alabama with a father and grandfather who were talented innovators and artisans, which was very advantageous on a backwoods farm in Alabama. He moved to Florida at 18 or 19, and his abilities soon channeled him into a job maintaining machinery at a citrus packing house, in which he became an expert at things electrical and mechanical.
A Hatcher story: in the same town where Dad was working at the packing house, the owner of a canning plant decided to do some major innovations which involved rewiring the entire plant, and made Dad an offer he couldn’t refuse. Dad supervised and did a major part of the actual work, and when the rewiring was done, he called the city electrical department to do the final inspection. The head of the department called him back and said, “Hatcher, you’ve taught me more about electricity than I ever learned in school, do you think I’m going to inspect your work? If you say it’s good it’s good.”
He was always looking for better ways of doing things to make the plant run better and his job easier, and in the process invented things he could have gotten rich on, but he considered it just part of his job, and entrepreneurship was beyond his ken.
He didn’t leave his talents at work, and in World War II, when it was nearly impossible to get heating oil, he built a furnace out of a 55 gallon drum that would burn used motor oil. It must have polluted like hell, but it kept us warm, and fortunately we lived in Florida.
It was a habit with him to listen for squeaks and scrapes—noises that meant friction and wear—to look for inefficiency, and it went so far that he would coach us in things like washing the dishes so that we would use less water and soap. I could write a book…
Needless to say I acquired some of his habits, if not his skills, and I get a huge kick out of making things work, finding better ways, etc. Eve has even picked it up a little, and invented a name for the process one day when she showed me a triumph of hers and said, “I Hatcherized it.”
It has its good side; then again, it can be maddening for people I’ve lived with to have me say things like, “You know, if you held your knife like this, you’d find it much easier to cut up that apple.” I’ve been Hatcherized.
I recognize that it’s annoying, and even ridiculous. I have to laugh at myself at the pleasure I find in making a bottle of dishwashing liquid last a year and a half… and there’s still a third of it left! You get the picture.
All of this is prelude to telling you about the project I’m about to begin. I’m going to order a kit that will turn an ordinary bicycle into an electric, and I can hardly wait to begin. There will be many opportunities for Hatcherizing it.
Only Slightly Hatcherized
