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Repair As Rebellion

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“…When fixing items is actively discouraged by manufacturers, repair becomes a political act.”

— Stuart Ward, repair café volunteer

My grandfather made his own electric lawn mower out of a pair of scrap metal blades and a washing machine motor that he pulled out of one of the machines at an apartment complex he owned, and repaired.

One of my childhood “jobs” was mowing my grandparents’ lawn. I have to admit, it was a pain in the ass to mow with Grandpa’s contraption; there was a method to it that had to be applied to efficiently work around the electrical extension cord. After I ran over the cord one too many times (Grandpa spliced and repaired it, of course) we compromised and he got me an old-school push lawn mower. I couldn’t do too much damage with that, and it turned mowing the lawn into a workout, which was kinda cool.

Ken Ginter was a rancher from North Dakota, the scion of thrifty, practical German stock. And he’d been through the Great Depression. With that background, the idea of throwing something out when it broke was almost obscene. You took care of your tools and equipment and if something broke, you fixed it. You salvaged “junk” and cannibalized working parts from one defunct machine to work in another. And if your lawnmower looked funky, well, it got the job done, didn’t it?

I had some appreciation for Grandpa’s way of doing things when he was alive — and a great deal more now. Planned obsolescence and a throwaway culture would have seemed unethical and grotesque to him. As they are.

*

I thought of Grandpa when I saw an article in The Guardian: “Can we fix it? The Repair Cafés Waging War On Throwaway Culture.”

A vacuum cleaner, a hair straightener, a laptop, Christmas lights, an e‑reader, a blender, a kettle, two bags, a pair of jeans, a remote-control helicopter, a spoon, a dining-room chair, a lamp and hair clippers. All broken.

It sounds like a pile of things that you’d stick in boxes and take to the tip. In fact, it’s a list of things mended in a single afternoon by British volunteers determined to get people to stop throwing stuff away.

Apparently, the first Repair Café was launched in 2009 by a Dutch woman named Marine Postuma in Amsterdam. She’s since created a foundation to help other outfits get going in other cities.  The idea is not only to get your item — clothing, furniture, appliance, whatever — fixed, but to participate in the repair and learn something while you’re at it.

A prepare café in Eugene, Oregon. photo KLCC

I love this.

I try hard not to get caught up in the throwaway culture. My boots can be resoled (if I can find a cobbler); both our vehicles are well over 10 years old. My guitar and my rifle are patinaed from the play of my hands on their finish. The guitar had to be repaired and revived at the hands of a luthier when its neck was broken in a sickening fall. There’s a visible crack repair at the base of the neck, but she plays just fine.

I’m temperamentally inclined to favor the old and the tried and true over the shiny and new. But plain old household items and appliances? I’m inclined to chuck ’em when they wear out (in short order, just like they’re supposed to). While I’m pretty good at field-expedient repairs and fixes, I’m not especially mechanically handy. I sure as hell couldn’t fix a vacuum cleaner — and wouldn’t take the time to do it if I could.

So the idea that there are folks who’ll do that sort of thing for fun — and as an act of cultural rebellion — delights me. And if I’m supposed to help and learn, it’d help me overcome my aversion to tinkering.

There’s gotta be a repair café in Central Oregon…

 

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Jim Cornelius

Jim Cornelius

Born in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Jim Cornelius grew up dreaming of distant frontiers, of mountain men, long hunters, African explorers. His older brother gave him a tattered copy of Allan W. Eckert’s The Frontiersmen, a biography of Simon Kenton, and the twig was bent. Graduated from...

Comments

  2. Paul McNameePaul McNamee says

    This is great!

    Of course, there is the issue of whether you *can* repair an item. Some are built so cheaply there is nothing for it but the junk pile. And that is a damn shame. Built-in obsolescence. Too much greed.

    I remember my father’s Craftsman drill. Steel body. You could put it through a wall and keep drilling. Heavy maybe, sure, but far more long lived than plastic — even heavy plastic bodies found on all the power tools nowadays.

    One good knife and stuff that works. We need more of that, not less.

    Reply

  3. RLT says

    Amen. The only reason my ’96 Jeep is still on the road is because I can fix almost anything wrong with it in my driveway. It does have a “control module,” but that module doesn’t do a whole hell of a lot, and is a long way from the computers in today’s vehicles.

    Reply

  4. Annie M says

    Love this piece of writing my friend. It put many smiles on my face while reading it. Memories of my dad too. He had a lot of , what I referred to as old crap. All I can remember is the push mower. When he came over here to live with me after mom passed away he brought a lot of that old crap still working. Fortunately no push mower. Up until a year ago did I toss his wood ladder. This was at least 65 years old and colored with many samples of paint. Impossible to repair and I didn’t want to take any chances that it would collapse. Still have his set of Craftsman tools!

    Reply

  5. Thom Eley says

    I had a VCR break down a few years ago and I took it in to an electronic repair friend. He just laughed and said “throw that fucker in the garbage and go get a new one. It is cheaper.” Cherie has been doing some writing on “The Throw Away Society,” which was a cover article on Life or Look.

    Reply

  7. tom says

    just got my danner (made in the usa) mtn light boots resoled for the 3rd time, and one of the boots has a leather patch to boot (pun intended). they still provide much service with several thousand trail miles. altho i’m a gentile, i was requested to participate in my granddaughters bat mitzpah and off to goodwill i went to buy my dress up shirt and necktie. beside repair we take pride on never having a gas or electric dryer. here in arid Arizona we have something called “dry heat” that gets that job done muy pronto! daily life is actually fun figuring out repairs and second hand, etc.….

    Reply

  8. Keith WestKeith West says

    “Planned obsolescence and a throwaway culture would have seemed unethical and grotesque to him. As they are.”

    More people need to adopt this mindset, and for multiple reasons. I’m trying to do more of my own repairs, not that I’ve had to do a lot yet. My reasons for this include it’s cheaper, it’s better for the environment, I usually have to learn something to be successful at I’m trying to do, and I have the satisfaction of a job well-done (or at least adequately done).

    Reply

  9. Pat_HPat_H says

    I’ve always taken this approach, which is probably because my parents always took it. I think it was common at one time. I can recall being a teenager when my father went around to all the old places he’s always gotten materials to repair our television no longer had them. It was the obvious death of an era.

    I had a conversation this reminds me of several weeks ago. I was driving home from a distant city with a co-worker and we were in my truck, an 07. I still think of it as new. He asked me when I was going to get a new one. “Never” was the reply. And that’s how I feel about it. As I’m in my mid 50s, I think I can make that one outlast me.

    FWIW, however, some folks outright disdain people with this sort of mindset. Oh well.

    Reply

  10. Annie M says

    I can still wear the shoes I wore in College. I do as many repairs as I can, with all of Dad’s old tools. Hate doing anything with electricity. The one and only time left me with frizzy hair! Still wearing one of my Dad’s old Pendleton felt shirts. Unfortunately things made now are meant not to last.

    I’m still not a spammer.

    Reply

  11. slm says

    My wife cooks cornbread in her great grandmother’s cast iron skillet that lost it’s wooden handle prior to WW2 as far as anyone remembers. As my wife just turned 70, we’re talking a well seasoned piece of iron. I swear you can taste the years.

    Reply

  12. Margaret W says

    This would be a great project to launch through Americana. A great teaching moment, get some of the old timers from the community to work with the kids.

    Reply

  13. John Cornelius says

    I remember Grandpa’s electric mower. Can’t say I had much of an appreciation for it when I had to mow with it, because of that damn cord, but I appreciated the innovation. I wound up with most of the tools from his garage, and I am sure that many of them traveled with them from the ranch in S. Dakota when they moved out to California. There are a couple of knives that are obviously one-off handcrafted blades. No branding to be found on them. Simply but beautifully made, and still wicked sharp, with oak handles and brass rivets, and well stained steel. I wish I knew their provenance and age, but just knowing that they are decades older than me is pretty fascinating. 

    Of course, there was the big cast iron skillet that was God knows how old, that I helped brown flour in for the gravy every Thanksgiving. 

    Thanks for another excellent piece, Jim. I like your and Craig’s perspectives. It is stimulating, thought provoking stuff.

    Reply

  14. Annie M says

    After 70 years I can still smell that chicken frying in mom’s cast iron skillet and making milk gravy to go over the real mashed potatoes (not that instant stuff). Our bar-b-que was a big slab of cast iron that dad got off an old army cook stove and set it on stakes in a pit. He’d fry up some nice very rare steaks off a cow they butchered. I still have the butchering knives. Good grief I’m getting too nostalgic. I love hearing your stories gang!

    Reply

  15. Thom Eley says

    Great stuff. Cast iron is the right way to cook. Oh, we had our bathroom redone and as part of it they removed the tub. I’ve never heard such cussing and swearing with all sorts of groaning. The boss came by and talk the two men with now permanent back pain. He came and talked to me and said, “whoa, I missed that tub was cast iron! That tub weighed over 350 pounds. I should had four of us carry it up the stairs and out of the house!”

    Reply

  17. Breaker Morant says

    Some of the things I remember most about my depression-era grandparents was that when they traveled whenever possible they always tried to stay with a cousin or whatever.

    Also, not as much fast food, more picnics instead. However, my grandfather took great pride in buying Sunday buffets for everybody, an occurrence that seems quite often in memory, but may be less than I remembered.

    However, I still remember the most attractive woman I have ever seen. She was a waitress in Estevan, Saskatchewan in 1982, and I was 15-so my experience with attractive women may not have been extensive, but I remember both Grandpa and I noticed her.

    Reply

  18. Lane Batot says

    I have always been a great scavenger and jerry-rigger; no truer saying than “necessity IS the mother of invention”! Po folks learns thimselves how to do sich fur thimselves! I patch and wear clothes(if I wear any at all!) till they fall apart. I drive whatever economy vehicle I have till it falls apart. I’m DREADING getting another vehicle(hopefully no time soon), since they have all become so computerized and complicated. My 90 year old Paw laments the days of Model T’s, that he says anyone could fix with a coat hanger and some spit if they ever broke down(which wasn’t often). When doing any dumpster diving, for which I have no shame, I am often amazed(and thrilled) to see what lazy arse people throw away!

    Reply

    • Craig RullmanCraig Rullman says

      When we left Kuwait my unit waited for the US Army to come through Camp Doha. They tossed an unreal amount of brand-new gear into the dumpsters because they didn’t want to have to clean it. So, like all Marines, we went dumpster diving for better gear and ended up extremely well kitted-out. Throw-away cultures do have their advantages.

      Reply

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