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Although not strictly about woodworking, I thought I would share this little story with you.
It never fails. Just when you are in the midst of trying to complete a project, tune up a machine, or clean up after yourself for the first time in months, the pitter patter of little feet and that sad, tragic, little voice break in on your woodworking reverie.
It wasn't as if we hadn't discussed this before. Just yesterday I looked over the broken seat post and pronounced it irreparable. After all, it's just a plastic bicycle; one of those big, blocky, multicolored, plastic things for toddlers. I don’t know the brand but my daughter is four years old and I don’t think it was meant to take the beating it gets almost daily - up and back, up and back, up and back on the sidewalk in front of our house while I watch from the shop.
The seat post is also cheap plastic and, after years of readjustment and use, I am surprised it didn’t break sooner. Heck, the thing was used when we got it! That doesn’t ameliorate the sadness as her little voice quivers when she asks one last time, tears streaming down her face, why some plastics can't be glued back together.
I told her it was time for a real bike anyway but she's like her Dad - sentimental. She turned and ran back into the house, her grief audible all the way to the end of the block, leaving a trail of coats and shoes in her wake. I could hear her upstairs in her room. Crying.
Those are the times the inside of Dad's chest feels like someone just grabbed hold of his heart with a giant pair of slip joint pliers, squeezed it flat, and twisted it around into a knot. God, it's a helpless feeling. Suddenly I don’t have any interest in woodworking any more.
Hang on a minute - a garage full of tools and hardware and there is absolutely nothing I can do? Hogwash, I say! It's a simple exercise in problem solving, nothing more. A few minutes spent studying the problem yields a clear understanding of what is required to hold the seat on and now it is only a matter of matching the right hardware to the application.
A quarter inch hole drilled through the seat is all that is necessary to accept the surplus four inch carriage bolt that begged to be pushed through from the top. Of course I filed the carriage bolt smooth and buffed it so as not to damage any clothing or injure her precious posterior. That plastic seat may not stick to glue but it sure holds a carriage bolt well. On goes the seat but I don't have a washer big enough as the one I attempted to use fell through the frame and onto the ground. No matter. A paper cup used as a template helped me lay out a washer on a piece of quarter inch tulip poplar. A couple minutes at the bandsaw followed by a quick trip to the drill press resulted in a perfectly serviceable part. Followed by a metal washer and a quarter inch nut, I was able to have her bike repaired in under 30 minutes.
I poked my head in the door and called for her, then I made sure she had her coat and shoes on. "Close your eyes", I said as I led her into the shop, then I told her to look. You'd have thought the sun had not yet come out that day the way she beamed. She took it for a spin around the shop once or twice then she jumped off, ran up to me, and jumped right off the ground into my arms. "I love you Daddy," she said, "You can fix anything!"
Up and back, up and back she rode as I watched from the shop. Okay, so I didn't get my project finished, if that is indeed what I was doing. I honestly don't remember. No mortises were pounded out with my mortise chisel and mallet. I cut no dovetails by hand. I accomplished nothing I had set out to do. Nevertheless, today the garage full of tools and hardware paid off - it made a little girl happy. I guess sometimes you do get to be the hero.
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