When I was a kid I thought my father was a weirdo. He's cut-up cereal boxes and make gaskets; meticulously cutting them out with a razor blade. I thought he was completely bonkers. "Normal" people went to the store and bought pre-made stuff and nobody did goofy stuff like that.
After he died I moved to the other side of the country and started working for an old German man. He do all the very same thing my father (also German) did. Stored small parts in baby food and jelly jars, never threw anything away. Was always doing things in odd ways, using odd materials and odd methods.
Years later a customer asked me to make some kind of "return spring" so that his wooden fence gate would automatically close when someone went out, because his dogs kept getting loose. So I looked around and found a bunch of heavy springs from a hammock in my junk pile, and an old plastic-coated steel cable that used to be used as a dog run. Long story short, using wooden blocks, 3" coarse drywall screws, the dog cable and the heavy springs, I "jury rigged" a super-strong, super heavy-duty tensioner that would allow you to open the gate and pass, but would pull the 4ft gate CLOSED when you (negligently) let it go.
Client (a doctor) comes home, looks at my contraption and says that I'm a fine example of a "bricoleur", and I'm like, thanks but what's a Brick o'Lure? So he tells me and it doesn't sit well with me. Feels French, who are effeminate and always surrendering to something or someone. So I look it up online:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage
My father made a go-cart out of oak hardwood and a 3.5 hp Briggs and Stratton engine. He had a welder, but had a pile oak hardwood laying around just collecting dust, so one summer he turned it into a bright-red go-cart. I flipped it upside down the 1st time out, burned my arm on the muffler, and never got to ride it again. I remember my mother carping and complaining about how all the other neighbors had "professionals" come out to repair things when they broke, and we always had "home made" repairs. 20 years later, long after he was dead, she confidently informed me that women at her age, they don't care about looks or money or any of that stuff most people think are important, no, women her age want "a man that can fix things". I didn't bother to tell her that, when she had that man, she didn't appreciate him.
So that's my point. Appreciate the alpha males that can fix things, using springs, dog leashes and cereal boxes. The whole world depends on you for it's very survival, and don't pay any attention to the idiots that think otherwise. Alt-Right.
