Rage

Jul 05, 2024

In an effort to gain insight into themselves, many people meditate. They go walkabout, try goat yoga and spend thousands of dollars on silent retreats in ancient monasteries.

I suggest they just spend a day fixing a Bobcat.

Last week, two separate strangers came to the farm. As usual, I made them troop down to the edge of Olson Lake to look at my office.

Whether they wanted to or not.

The sod roof is healthy, the wildflowers are blooming and all in all, it looks pretty good. Our guests made all the appropriate sounds, but I sensed that underneath was something they didn't say, namely, “What the hell were you thinking?”

I'm used to that, so I usually try to short circuit the comments by saying, “When people ask me what I did last summer I say, “Nothing practical.”

No one has ever disagreed with that.

Truthfully, I couldn't really remember why I started this particular project. But the other day my Bobcat broke down and it all came back to me.

On Wednesday morning I was going to hit the ground running, but when I backed the Bobcat out of the shed, I went about ten feet and heard a noise - a bad noise - and couldn't help but notice that I was sitting in a cloud of blue smoke and half the controls didn't work.

I’m no mechanic, but this seemed like a bad thing.

I investigated and it turned out the belt that drives the hydraulic system broke. Kind of a win, because of the possible problems it was the least bad option. I was on the verge of calling a mechanic, but then noticed the little bench my wife sometimes sits on to garden and I decided to take a whack at fixing it myself.

It wasn't too difficult. An eighteen-year-old with long arms, a decent tool kit, and access to YouTube could have changed the belt in half an hour. It took me considerably longer, in part because my days of kneeling on the gravel have gone away and in part because I needed to cram myself into a confined space, which is not part of my current skill set.

Sitting with my chin pressed against a fuel pump and trying to make my left arm an inch and a half longer, I remembered why I'd decided to build a stone and timber office.

Dylan Thomas.

Specifically, the poem he wrote about his dad dying and the wish that the old man would fight the inevitable a little harder. “Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”

I'm nearly 70 years old and I hate it.

No, that's not accurate. I don't mind getting older, what I mind is that in the process, there are things I can't do anymore.

That's not unique to me. John Wesley had a prayer that read, in part, “Please God, don't let me live long enough to become useless.” If you aren't fond of Welsh poets who've been dead longer than I've been alive, maybe Toby Keith singing, “Don't let the old man in,” will resonate.

The truth is, I built the stone building by the edge of the slough because I can't stand the thought of giving in, slowing down, or giving up.

And that's a little stupid, because often a full life is about slowing down, giving in and moving on. The happiest times of my life have always been preceded by me thinking, “I'm not going to do that anymore; I'm going to do something else.”

So, when people ask me what I did last summer I say, “Nothing practical.”

But this summer I fixed the Bobcat.