Hand Me That Hydrometer, Pal

Popular Mechanics published a list of 100 skills its editors decided that every man should know. Some of them are predictable (jump-start a car) some are puzzling (survive lightning) and almost all are stereotypical (rescue damsel in distress).

O.K. That last one isn’t really in there.

But the tenor is the pretty much the same. Except for the occasional androgynous task (use a sewing machine, iron a shirt) the overall implication is that men do manly things, and lots of them.

“I am lucky, my husband surpasses this 100 and can do more,” one female respondent crowed.

Well. I think I’m glad she didn’t feel the need to enlighten us further. But of course we all have additional skills not on the list. For instance, I am fluent in three languages (if you count Igpay Atinlay and Dulfouble Talfalk); can properly use “comprise,” “purport” and “begs the question”; and remember the birthdays of tons of people who have long since gone out of my life.

But do I really need to know how to stick weld or master a coolant hydrometer? I think not.

Instead, here are a few skills I wish I had that aren’t on the list:

Detecting and avoiding a boxing glove headed to my face.

Keeping my mouth shut when I know that opening it is just going to tick my wife off.

Performing routine computer functions without having to e-mail my geek friends in Nashville.

Making a cue ball go where I want it to go.

And playing a musical instrument. But not just any instrument. The guitar, say. Or harmonica.

You know. Something manly.

Either Write Things Worth Reading, Or...

My friend Alan Huffman once asked why I hadn’t considered writing a book. I told him I didn’t know enough words.

“Use some of them twice,” he said.

That approach must work for Alan, who has since written several books, including the latest, “Sultana.”

But the problem for me with nonfiction is that I’m far too lazy to do the kind of research required, even on a subject close to my heart. (Besides, does the world need another book on the refreshing qualities of beer?)

I tried fiction once, with a short story. And I quickly learned that it isn’t enough just to come up with a title. There have to be characters, and they have to say and do stuff. As if I had the imagination for that.

Which leaves available the memoir, a popular field I’ve never fully understood. Is it that these writers all have much better memories than I do, or simply that they’ve led lives filled with experiences much more tragic, comic or inspiring than mine? Or, as with Frank McCourt, both?

I’m not saying my years have been entirely without highlights, but near-starvation and a ne’er-do-well drunk of a father in Depression-era Ireland are not among them. And I’m not sure there is a market for my tale of angst about having to dance at the Farmer’s Ball in high school, or of hydrophobic trepidation at my full-immersion baptism.

Of course, James Frey and “Margaret B. Jones”, among others, have demonstrated that adherence to truth is not necessarily a requirement to get a memoir published. But I suspect that if I tried to mention my rewarding two years of Peace Corps service in Africa, or my daring rescue of 12 first graders trapped in a burning bus, someone in the know would quickly rat me out.

So I remain unpublished, at least in the book world. But if I should ever muster the gumption to try to tell my life story, I at least have constructed the opening line:

“About the time my face cleared up, my hair started falling out.”

Why the Grass Is Greener on the Other Side

The little signs on neighborhood lawns announcing chemical beautification treatments taunt me, reminders that my own grass is trying to make it without performance enhancers.

This is my doing.

Unconvinced that the hundreds of dollars a year we had been spending were doing any particular good, I suspended our lawn service last summer. And I’ve persisted in that stance, despite repeated telephone entreaties to re-up.

The last (and what I hope is final) time I told a guy no, he seemed genuinely puzzled that anyone could be so uncaring.

“What are you doing with your lawn?” he asked.

The answer, which I did not feel obliged to give him, is “nothing.” I have reverted to my previous practice, observed for decades, of a simpler relationship with grass: It grows; I cut it.

Granted, this is contrary to standard practice on Long Island, where chemicals to make grass green (and a wide array of other plants, as well as bugs, dead) are considered essential. So what if, in using them, people are turning the whole place toxic?

Thus I have environmental, as well as economic, principles to stand on.

I also, unfortunately, have some rather bare spots of dirt to stand on, especially in my front yard. (Why is it the grass will happily strive to grow across the sidewalk, without first filling in the yard gaps?) My wife fears an invasion of dandelions from the yard behind (which, in addition to a generally carefree attitude about grass maintenance, displays the same approach for children’s toys, wheelbarrows, discarded furniture and the like).

So my resolve is being tested. Will good triumph over evil? I’m ready to do my part: mow. Grass, the ball’s in your court. Man up.