OK, guys, how do you rate? Do you have what it takes?
The editors of Popular Mechanics magazine have compiled a list of “25 Skills Every Man Should Know.” It’s the cover story of the October issue. How many of them have you mastered?
The magazine’s columnist, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, bemoans the loss of “hands-on skills — building things, fixing things, operating machines and so on.”
He quotes a reader who laments that Habitat for Humanity volunteers “can’t do something as basic as using a tape measure” and says his Saturdays “are effectively clinics on how to pound a nail.”
Even changing a tire is beyond the skills of many motorists. Nearly 4 million people called AAA last year for roadside assistance to fix a flat. (We’ll come back to that in a minute.)
Reynolds acknowledges that young people today do possess “skills that earlier generations never dreamed of”: building Web sites, editing digital movies.
But from time to time, he says, everyone will face difficulties that can’t be solved with a laptop and a cell phone. In a genuine emergency, “some basic manual skills could be the difference between surviving comfortably and being totally helpless.”
The story was in the works off and on for about two years, Executive Editor David Dunbar said, as he and staff members came up with lists and engaged in “long, spirited discussions” about what should be on the list and what should be scratched. The file of memos and responses “is five or six inches thick,” he said.
For example, one editor responded to a draft list: “How to tie down a load: Too obvious. How to get rid of a virus: Too simple. How to build the perfect campfire: Too easy. How to network: Too not ‘how-to.'”
So why don’t Americans know these skills, things many of their fathers and grandfathers knew how to do?
Partly it’s because products have become more complicated, Dunbar said. Take a broken window. Years ago a window had a single pane of glass. When a neighborhood kid hit a baseball through it, it wasn’t too difficult to get a new piece of glass and get out the putty knife and replace it. Today, we have better windows: double- or triple-paned with special gases trapped between the panes to promote energy efficiency. Consumers can’t fix those.
Or take cars. They just are more complicated these days. “As a non-automotive guy, I look under a hood and it’s all so unfamiliar, I don’t know where to start,” Dunbar said.
And don’t ask about electronics. Dunbar tried repairing his son’s iPod when it fell on the floor and the screen cracked. Even with help from the magazine’s tech guy, ordering parts and jury-rigging repairs, “we voided the warranty and it was way more trouble than it was worth in the end.”
As for the article’s title — “25 Skills Every Man Should Know” — Dunbar pointed out that his magazine’s readership is 90 percent male. He also noted that no one seems to get upset when sister magazines like Good Housekeeping address their female readership directly (with articles about “your husband”). He agreed that “women should know these things too,” and that men should know “how to sew on a button, iron a shirt and cook a meal.”
So take a look at the list. Which ones can you do? If you need a cheat sheet, pick up a copy of the magazine, where you can find step-by-step instructions to learn every one.
* Patch a radiator hose.
* Protect your computer.
* Rescue a boater who has capsized.
* Frame a wall.
* Retouch digital photos.
* Back up a trailer.
* Build a campfire.
* Fix a dead outlet.
* Navigate with a map and compass.
* Use a torque wrench.
* Sharpen a knife.
* Perform CPR.
* Fillet a fish.
* Maneuver a car out of a skid.
* Get a car unstuck.
* Back up data.
* Paint a room.
* Mix concrete.
* Clean a bolt-action rifle.
* Change oil and filter.
* Hook up an HDTV.
* Bleed brakes.
* Paddle a canoe.
* Fix a bike flat.
* Extend your wireless network.
