I’m working on two projects that require welding: 1) a second “deck” on my kayak trailer so I can easily transport 4 at a time, and 2) a “ladder leveler” that levels my ladder on steep slopes. In both cases weld failure is consequential. Having kayaks skitter down the interstate unleashed is worrisome to some of my family and friends, and having me fall off a 32’ ladder even more so. They don’t seem comforted by the fact that I’m not worried.
So after cutting the pieces and tacking them together into what I hoped were viable configurations, which some of my ideas aren’t, I set out on a search for a welder. I mean a person who welds, not a machine that welds. Those should be different words to save confusion. “Weldenmensch” vs “Weldenapparat,” to coin a couple terms. I have a weldenapparat, but I’m not a weldemensch. Or at least I wasn’t, but that’s getting ahead of myself.
It cost $135 for the weldenmensch to use his weldenapparat. That’s a lot for 15 minutes, but what kind of price can you really put on kayaks not chasing cars down the freeway or me doing an ugly swan dive onto solid ground?
Like most curious lifelong learners, I chatted with the welder. The person, not the machine, although talking to machines isn’t out of the question and I know plenty of people who do it in raised voices and bad language.
It turns out he teaches at Austin Community College. “Hmmm,” I hummm’ed. “I’d love to take a class, but 5 hours one day a week for 5 weeks is too much right now. Besides, I’m an above-average lifelong learner so I really don’t need 25 hours of welding to keep from falling off a ladder.”
“Actually,” he replied, “I would prefer teaching one-on-one in my shop. I could teach you what you need to know in one day.” I wondered how he figured out so quickly that I’m precocious, but I didn’t ask.
My birthday was coming up. Each year Nora frantically tries to find anything at all that will prevent me from doing what I most enjoy on my birthday, which is to take on a challenge like I did last year, riding my bicycle 73 miles (my age, in case you didn’t figure that out) under a blazing sun and 100 degrees of heat. I think she’s over-reacting to the fact that at the end she had to help me off my bike and pretty much drag me by the armpits to her car.
So Nora signed me up for a personal welding class, and I showed up promptly at 9 to get started. I was thrilled when he didn’t insist on proper clothing, correctly surmising that I’d rather have blisters and scars on my feet than shoes.
I won’t waste long paragraphs describing the class. A welding class isn’t like a nature hike or a kayaking lesson. The pictures aren’t gripping. You put on a helmet so you don’t go blind, put on gloves so you have some skin left at the end of the lesson, grab a wire-feed pistol that you can’t see because of the helmet nor feel because of the gloves, and start welding whatever bits of scrap iron he sets up.
I must say my welds were a lot more creative than his. I think he grew up on streets that were straight, and I grew up on rivers that weren’t, and that has impacted our whole lives, including our approach to welding.
“Weld these two pieces together.” Pause, sparks, smoke. Then, “Not bad. Now weld another line at the edge of the first one.” Pause, sparks, smoke. Then, “Hmmm. Try this and that and do it again.” Pause, sparks, smoke. Then, “Are you left-handed or right-handed?” He was grasping for reasons why my lines were looking more and more like a boa constrictor preparing to strike. That pretty much characterizes the lesson: me welding and him grasping for every-more-far-fetched reasons why my welding looked the way it did.
Three hours later I’m pretty sure he didn’t think I was precocious, but he was encouraging. “You’ve got a solid feel for what you need to do, and a sense of how it should look, and now all you need is practice, practice, practice.” Of course the solid feel for what I need to do and the sense of how it should look came from watching him weld.
I think that was his way of giving up on me. I didn’t mind, because when you’re a newly-minted 74-year-old, it isn’t as easy as it once was to hunch over a workbench for several hours straight watching your welds not go so straight. Although I don’t feel 74, my back, arms, and hands did.
But let’s be clear: I improved. He even said I improved, although it was a bit of a mutter like he wouldn’t own it if questioned by state police chasing kayaks. He said I had graduated from spot welding my projects to actually welding them as long as I didn’t care how they looked. I said I’d just tell people he taught me. Sometimes you really don’t want to be known as someone’s teacher.
Now I’m a welder. I’m bent, my shoulders slump, I smell like scorched iron. The knowledge I have gained can never be taken away by anything less than a fall from a 32-foot ladder.
And what have you learned? Send your story to admin@lifelonglearnersgtx.com.