The loss

We had the distinct misfortune of having to bury an employee very recently. He was an exceptional mechanic with decades of experience working on heavy trucks and equipment and knew the types of failures we routinely see. We were his second career. He’d already retired from MoDOT fleet-maintenance before coming to us. He was a solid employee, always at his workstation on time, productive, a peacemaker in the shop and very competent in his work. And he was a cancer survivor… until he wasn’t.

We’ve had to bury employees before. During COVID we had two mechanics succumb to the virus. I don’t know if the vaccine would have saved them or not, but I do know they specifically chose to not be vaccinated. The one of the two I’d personally spoken to (prior to his hospitalization) spoke like an archetypal conspiracy theorist about the topic. I’m told that narrative was the same as the other mechanic, though I hadn’t spoken to him personally. In their cases they made conscious decisions and dealt with the (likely) consequences. More power to them; they lived their convictions.

With this more recent loss, that wasn’t how it played out at all. He and his family’s loss were through no conscious decision, but simply through the convergence of genetics and subsequent failure of the organism. For whatever reason his death impacted me more than I would have expected. Maybe it was his zeal and positive temperament, commitment to his craft or even his age (several years my junior). Whatever the reason, it stuck with me.

He was a career mechanic, and with that comes the continual urge to buy new tools to make shop life easier; a behavior fabled in song, story and folk-dance. As a courtesy to his family we transported his (very significant) collection of tools and tool-chests to his home, for his widow to do with as she saw fit. He had fathered two kids (a girl and a boy, in that order). Both were young(ish) adults, but neither appeared to have automotive interest, so his widow chose to liquidate.

Round one was a tool garage sale, which was catered to the mechanics he’d worked with over the years (MoDOT Fleet and our organization). I went early with my oldest son in-tow. There I found out that what he’d kept at work only represented a microcosm of his total tool commitment. Table after table and box after box of tools were laid out in the garage and basement, along with a full woodshop, plumbing and electrical section, each with their unique tools present too. Most of these tools were in complete sets and were top-notch stuff. It was also evident he’d made redundancy a goal, as there were 2-each of many things, likely to have comparable sets of at home and at work.

After a full walk-through I realized I was looking at about a $200-250K+ collection which he’d amassed over 40-odd career years. I realized they could never realize anything approaching that amount, and I was humbled. All that effort, all those tools and he would never be able to turn these wrenches in anger again, or benefit his family… I bought a 3/8” drive deep-well impact set, thanked the family and my son and I went to breakfast.

What did all this mean to me? I’m still sorting through that. There was always virtually nothing I couldn’t repair if it involved mechanics, electrical/electronics, hydraulics or plumbing, so it could have been me looking back at my own career and reminiscing. I still do my own work, though with the transition into management I’d already pared down my own tool collection long-long ago. Or maybe I simply became painfully aware I have way less time ahead of me than behind me, and it doesn’t particularly make sense to make my family through these hoops that his family was jumping through.

I’d already been making some effort to downsize (like shop tools mentioned above), but the deeper I dig, the bigger this project gets. Not mechanics tools, but virtually anything else I’d embraced as a hobby over several decades of life: gear used in music performance, film and digital photography, electrical/electronics, fine-art painting supplies and even collectable pocket watches (yeah, don’t ask). I’m not thinking I’ll get another sixty-odd  years to walk the earth, so when did I propose to use all this stuff again?

Some of the big music gear went first. We played loud in the 1980’s, and the gear grew to accommodate the need. I still play casually today (bassist), but now it is virtually a “plug into the house system and play” situation. iPads on your stand for in-ear monitor mix and DI out for the front-of-house to do their magic. I run a little tiny cabinet as a stage monitor. All that big gear went to a bassist in his 20’s that was a self-described punk/funk/alternative fusion musician. His eyes lit up after he plugged in, turned up, worked the bass over and caused another minor earthquake in Asia somewhere, so I cut him a deal on the whole package to get it gone. You go boy. I hope your back can hold out for the long haul.

With that one sale I managed to right-size only one (of about ten) of my major hobbies. I am afraid that I will need to speed this process along, or one day there’ll be someone like me walking through my estate sale, on the verge of an existential crisis, just like I am going through now.