Photo courtesy of Pam Wilson.
Ken Goldberg (left) and Marc Cockerham, the real Mr. Fix-It
My husband Kenny can fix anything. He looks at a project around the house and knows what to do. He has an incredible ability to take things apart and put them back together.
Kenny loves the hardware store and can get lost in them for hours. A long time ago, I realized that my role is to smile, to be appreciative and to have Band-Aids at-the-ready.
When we need to have work done, Kenny is right there in the thick of things. At first I thought he might be bothering the carpenters, painters, and electricians, but it turns out that everyone likes to be acknowledged as an expert in their field. In turns out that they love telling Kenny what they’re doing and why, and I realized that my husband was learning as he was helping.
It should come as no surprise that when Kenny is fixing something it takes twice as long to complete the task. There is usually some blood involved and sometimes more than one trip back to the hardware store. When he’s committed, he’s committed.
But the one thing he doesn’t do well is electricity.
This summer we came home one evening and our front lights were out. The next day Kenny got out his tools, his ladder and hardhat and took a look. He determined that it wasn’t the light bulb but the actual fixture or wiring. So he began to take things apart. All I saw were screw drivers and wires.
I wasn’t concerned.
He managed to get one set of lights working and then left town for the week on business. That night I turned the front lights on and the entire back half of the house went pitch black.
Calling him, I explained the problem and he walked me through what he thought would fix the black-out: throwing the breakers. I was in the garage with a flash-light desperately trying to read his labels and follow his directions.
Nothing.
He was getting frustrated and I eventually gave up. None of the breakers turned the lights back on. So Jessie and I spent the week eating early dinners to catch the natural light.
Kenny got back in town and looked at the breakers and concluded they weren’t the problem. He figured out how to get the back half of the house lit, but we couldn’t use the front lights.
Just yesterday an electrician friend came over, took one look, did one simple thing and hurray, we now have outdoor and interior lights. It turns out Kenny did everything right, except there was a renegade wire that had to be re-attached.
Twice as long. Blood involved. Trips to the hardware store.
Mr. Fix-It is back in business.
