A few columns ago, I wrote about fear and I mentioned that, growing up, I was a little afraid of my father. Some of you knew him from when he retired and moved to Pittsfield and his involvement in the Pittsfield Historical Society. A few other people asked me how I could have been afraid of him, knowing him as they did. So, I thought that I would share with you a column I did for the now gone Valley Times. With a few minor corrections, it is as printed in the December ‘96 issue. 
   I saw my hands reflected in a mirror the other day and thought how much they looked like my father’s. My brothers share this feature as well. He has been gone for almost two years and every once in a while, a memory will creep in and I will recall some small thing from my childhood.
   Father was an inventor, tinkerer, hobbyist, you name it. He was talented and very clever with his hands. They never made him a rich man nor did they make him famous, although he did have several poems published. He restored and customized cars along with a friend and turned them into things of beauty. If they were still around, I’m sure they would be quite valuable. He was an HO train nut too, building cars and locomotives from scratch, not from kits. I vaguely remember the layouts. I do remember watching him craft car after car turning scraps of wood into “rolling stock.”
   He played the piano and could play very well. With friend Elmer Nickerson, he recorded a record once, long ago lost, but not all that bad. He tuned pianos for a time and there were a few sing alongs in the cellar of our house. The piano being more in tune than the singers, especially after a beer or two.
   Up until the time of his death, he would “invent” things. Gadgets that utilized everyday items, but amazingly worked. I’m sure a fortune was lost in his not pursuing some of them. This must be where the term “jerry rigged” came from. His name was Gerald, but it was Jerry to his friends. He could draw very well, a talent acquired from his mother and has passed along. He was an electronics expert and spent many years with his face buried in the back of a TV. He taught school in electronics part time as a supplement to his income as a radio/TV repairman. He did so many wonderful things with those hands including climbing to the rooftops of tall houses and buildings, installing TV antennas.
     He was a member of MENSA and INTERTEL. He had the intellect, but failed to turn it into anything tangible. He died having very little to show for his 76 years of toil and talent, barely surviving all his life and barely surviving before he died. He was a practical joker with a great sense of humor and was quite a trickster. He would share the stories of the jokes and tricks he and his friends used to do.
   All in all, he must have enjoyed life and got out of it what he wanted, sometimes at the expense of his family. He was a unique individual and accomplished much with those hands. I should do so much.
   My father paid little attention to his grandchildren and ours were treated with the same indifference. I feel he made up for this indifference last January. When Darren had his accident, he suffered cardiac arrest twice. The first time resulted in the majority of his problems and the second was not as severe and he was revived quickly. Darren does not remember these two near death experiences, but when he headed towards that place where we all will be eventually, he was met by my father who took him by the hand and led him back to us. He told him it was not time yet.  Those hands became useful again, if only for a moment. One last wonderful thing from my father’s hands.
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