So, when did it dawn on you that you were given to fits of
handtool fundamentalism?

  My first spasm was Christmas 1961, a few years before the birth
of the Rankin/Bass classic, Rudolph the Red-nose Reindeer, when
Jolly Ol' St. Nick gave me a carpenter's belt full of tools (I'm
covered in the hives right now knowing that Norm and I have some-
thing in common).

  I was just a snot-nosed punk of 4, who enjoyed taunting cats 
even at that age. I vividly remember taking the screwdriver of
the set and removing doorknobs in the house much to my ma's ire.
[I guess I had this latent desire to rip things apart, as it wasn't
long before I shreaded my younger brother's Mr. Machine to pieces.
Seems unavoidable, now, that I dismantled that house piece by
piece as destiny's voice was chanting "Dismantle it and they
will leave" over and over in my own personal Field of Screams.]

  The scene switches to somewhere around the age of 10, when I
fancied arboreal living in the tree-houses I made. These weren't
simple affairs of the common platform up in the branches, but
were, instead, multi-level domiciles with cantilevered porches.
I suppose if I were into dames at the time, curtains, shag car-
peting, an Easy Bake Oven, and indoor plumbing woulda been on 
the punch list. Thankfully, I wasn't.

  Anyway, it's the swinging in the trees where the light dawned
over Marblehead that things could be done with the simplest of
tools (that, and we didn't have an extension cord long enough)
and it's been downhill ever since.

  How about you?

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Patrick Leach
Just say Why am I such a misfit?
         I am not just a nitwit.
         Just because my knuckles drag,
         Why don't I fit in?
etc.
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