Engineers — duct-tape, can-do attitude

My dad, Alfred Smith, at work in the Woodland Hills lab at Litton Industries
 sometime in the 1950s or 60s

Editor's note: Today column, the final installment of the Rhode Island wedding, will be late, so I can take my mother to church and to the cemetery, since it is Father's Day. In the meantime, here is a column I wrote about my late father, Alfred M. Smith, in August 2005 for the Antelope Valley Press.

My dad can fix anything.

Actually, I should say that my dad can fix anything mechanical. He tries to fix everything that is wrong or broken, everywhere.

When something has gears, printed circuit boards, wirewrap, nuts, bolts, gears, solder, oil, and, well, parts, he's successful.

When he's trying to fix other people's personal problems or straighten out the guys in his American Legion post, he's considerably less so, as you can imagine.

That doesn't stop him from trying. 

Living with an electronics engineer is trying. Or any engineer, for that matter. Especially retired ones.

They are so used to being the go-to guy for repairs and innovation,  that it seems to be impossible to give up that role.

The challenge for my father is to pick his battles and realize that just because he can fix something, that doesn't mean he should.

My folks are moving and downsizing from their current spread in Northern California, and it's been a little traumatic for my dad, I think. He's had to part with any number of unfinished projects - three Packards of various vintage, I don't know how many Mustangs, a Burt Rutan kit plane, and a Volkswagen bug, that when it emerged from the South 40 took my mother utterly by surprise.

“When did you buy that? she asked incredulously, as the new owner towed it out of the underbrush.

Never tell my dad that something is broken, because he'll want to fix it. But he's a really busy guy, so he'll take it with the best of intentions, and you'll never see it again. Or worse, he'll give it what my grandmother used to call “a lick and a promise” so you can continue using it- intending to finish it later.

He pulled the broken AM radio out of my 1967 VW bug over my objections. Of what earthly use was an AM radio to me? I used it to listen to Kings' games, and it's not like hockey season is year-round.

But he couldn't stand that it wasn't working, so he yanked it out and put it on his workbench, with the best of intentions. So then I had a gale-force wind blowing through my trunk and out the hole in my dash until one day my keys were stolen at a garage when they had my car overnight.

Some disgruntled former employee broke in and stole all the customer's keys. In typical kid fashion, I only had one ignition key. I managed to find an extra door key in a junk drawer, so I was able to get into the bug and my dad hot-wired it.

At home, he duct-taped a scrap piece of printed circuit board mounted with a toggle switch and a button over the black hole in my dash. I flipped the switch to get electricity and hit the button for ignition.

I drove it like that until I wanted to get a car stereo, then I was forced to fix it for good.

Years later, I had a problem with my Hyundai overheating because the secondary cooling fan wasn't coming on. He didn't have time to chase down the problem, so he hot-wired that, too. 

I had a switch mounted under my rearview mirror on the outside of the car. It worked great - just turn it on and let it run, then turn it off when you shut the car off. If you remembered, that is.

I can't tell you how many times I had to jump my car because the battery was dead. And I lived in mortal fear that someone walking by would see this random toggle switch and flip it just wondering what it did.

No wonder my favorite part of “Apollo 13" is when Ed Harris dumps out the random stuff that the astronauts have in the capsule and the engineers start spit-balling a solution to their problem.

It reminds me of my dad.