My dad is a mechanic.
Sure he’s other things too: a husband, a father, grandfather, business owner.
But in the hierarchy of my mind, my dad is the Mechanic, and the Mechanic is king.
Since I was old enough to pedal a trike, I’ve always found a device between me and what I wanted to do.
I wanted to go places, so my dad had to patch my bike tubes. I wanted to ride our Yamaha three-wheeler up every hill in Fremont County; my dad had to replace spark plugs.
My siblings and I wanted nice school clothes. Our dad welded together a trailer and fixed up an old Chevy truck so we could haul our lawn mowers around town and make money cutting grass.
When he wasn't at work he was flipping cars in our garage for extra money.
I always understood that if the devices functioned well, then we would be well.
So to me, the valiant man of our world is the one who makes things run, makes things last, makes things hold their purpose under pressure.
That’s my dad.
He scans the world with both eyes and tests it with both ears. Ailing truck brakes and weak chassis designs hit him like bad notes hit a musician.
The whole mettle of his being compels him to wrench the things back into harmony.
That’s not just some personal mandate. His internal design simply matches his function, like a well-built motorcycle:
He is a fixer, so he fixes things.
The form is the function, as the good Lord and Soichira Honda intended.
I don’t ride three-wheelers through the hills anymore.
I’m not surrounded by the same gear-head, oil-rig-hand, farmer-rancher, make-things-go folk who thronged my upbringing once my parents bought the motorcycle shop.
Now that I’m in the news business, I spend my days covering lawyers, politicians and public servants.
But I’m still looking for mechanics.
The economist Thomas Sowell explained it better than I could, in his book “A Conflict of Visions.” He wrote that the true distinction in politics isn’t between the Left and the Right – but between the outcome-seeking people and the process-seeking people.
Some people in government want to get a quick fix for the problem of the day, and some want to improve the whole machine of government.
Sometimes we, as a society, find ourselves in a crisis. And we need a quick fix to some injustice.
But more often than we-the-people dare to realize, the quick fixes damage our whole civic machine, because they warp one of the arching principles that made the machine function beautifully in the first place.
As an example, let us say that the American government has functioned well because we don’t like to meddle in private contracts. But some crisis hits us, and we decide through our representatives that it’s OK to meddle in private contracts just this once.
And then again, for a different crisis.
And again, for another.
Pretty soon, the government is meddling in all manner of contracts on a whim, and based on the favoritisms, personality clashes, and crises – real or contrived – in the fad and phase of each era.
Sure you can say this crisis demanded that we depart from our civic-mechanical principles. And maybe you’re right – and we can debate that. Let our discourse fuel this combustion engine.
But many public servants are the type who, faced with a broken dirt bike at a kids’ motorcycle race, would scoop up the bike in their arms, rush it over the finish line and say “Look! I won!”
No, silly. You were supposed to fix the bike so the next kid could ride it at the next race. This isn’t about you. It’s about the machine.
You were supposed to fix the machine so that any person of any level of mechanical aptitude could ride it without incident! Now get off the track before you become the grim inspiration for a new rear-brake design.
If you’re a judge, you’re supposed to tune our machine of jurisprudence, not fling it at your chosen target like an arrow.
If you’re a lawmaker, you’re supposed to make legal systems that will serve us whether you remain in our race pits or not.
If you're an enforcer, just don't wreck the thing.
The true mechanic is humble enough to pour his life’s work into machinery that serves others, and that outlasts him.
The machine doesn’t remember his name or care if he’s gone. The machine doesn’t depend on the mechanic’s splashy personality to keep running.
What a humble and backwards way of being! We social-media-addicted, instant-gratification zombies don’t know what to do with such anonymous devotion.
And yet we benefit from the unsung work and sacrifices of people whose very DNA compels them to make things run well.
That's why the mechanic is king.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
