I’m not sure where I first heard of the idea of being a “Jack of All Trades,” but from that time on it has always been a fascinating idea to me. Of course, normally that expression is followed by a qualifying phrase. The person claiming to be something of a jack of all trades usually modestly tempers that claim, as in “I’m sort of a jack-of-all-trades, and master of none.” I think I’m a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, and a master of none. I’ve done a little of a lot of things, but never became as good at any of them as I would have hoped. I think having a farm background tends to make one something of a jack-of-all-trades. To farm, at least to farm as we did in the 1940s and 1950s, required that one be able to do lots of different things pretty well; maybe not with outstanding excellence, but pretty well.
We used to hear a great deal of discussion about the values of book-learning as against practical skills and common sense. I had an experience several years ago that gave me some personal experience of the two. I had gone to college for two years, then ran out of money, and had taken a job to have an income. I had been interested in engineering, wanted to design and build car engines, but I had little experience with repairing cars. I was interested in the car repair trade, as well as many other trades, and in the summer of 1959 I took a correspondence course in auto mechanics.
As a result, I noticed that it helped me understand how many of the components of a car work, but it didn’t necessarily help me in doing some of the practical mechanical tasks in the shop. For example, sometimes the problem is not understanding how a car’s transmission works, but how do I get this bolt to start in those threads up there where I can’t reach with my fingers, especially since I don’t have quite the right wobble socket and extension to work it into place? Another example, sometimes the problem is not understanding how a car’s brakes work, but how do I get this stubborn brake line aligned and screwed into that brass block, without cross threading and ruining the block? I became a pretty fair mechanic, but never a master automotive technician. Today, they usually call mechanics “automotive technicians.”
Being on the farm presents a person with all kinds of situations which call for a wide array of skills. It helps to know something about animals and what is called animal husbandry.
Whether you learn such things from a book or from a parent or grandparent or someone else, you can’t raise animals successfully by being a dummy.
That makes me wonder if the Dummy’s Books have gotten around to writing about raising animals? For a time there a few years ago, after the book “DOS for Dummies” came out, I thought there was going to be a Dummies book on almost any subject you could think of. They were pretty good computer and computer software books.
On the farm, we had to became jacks-of-the-veterinary-trades. I remember learning how to be a helper when a cow was having a calf, how to ease the deadly pressure when a cow got into Johnson Grass patch.
Back in the 1940s, we had something of a black-leg scare, a deadly livestock disease, and we had to know how to dispose of a carcass safely so as to prevent the spread of the disease.
When I was young, my dad was building a number of farm buildings on our place. I remember at an early age getting to hammer nails, to measure, mark and saw boards to length, to square up boards that were “off,” and to brace walls so they wouldn’t fall.
I probably spent half of my first 10 years with my left thumbnail healing up from the latest hammer miscue.
I was always hammering my thumbnail instead of the nail I was supposed to drive.
My dad taught me several times how not to hammer my thumb, but learning that teaching is something else. I heard once the expression, “He’s a jack-leg carpenter!” That is an expression for a carpenter who doesn’t know much about being a carpenter, but who does carpentry anyway. I think I eventually got to be better at farm carpentry than a jack-leg carpenter, but I never became a master carpenter.
Our farm also called for concrete work. All the foundations of our farm buildings were constructed with a mix of cement, sand and creek gravel. We didn’t have a power cement mixer, so we would build a large flat box to pour our stuff into, and then we would mix the cement, sand and gravel all together with spades, rakes and hoes. Then we would scoop the mix into a wheelbarrow to be rolled to the right spot. It was not very efficient, and it was plain old hard work, but it formed some pretty good foundations. I take part of that statement back. Today, 70 years later, some of those old foundations are not so sound anymore. If I learned something from that, I think it is that creek gravel is not the best for concrete foundations.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 06/05/2013