with some kind of an alloy deck, like magnesium or something. He prided himself on keeping that old lawnmower running. Finally, one day in the 1990s, it caught on fire. He pushed it out of the garage and into his driveway and sadly watched it burn.

I guess I inherited some of that from him. Just recently, I glued together the plastic cover on a light switch and stretched and bent a rusty spring on one of our boat's central vacuuming system covers. I probably could have replaced both for less than $3.