Whenever I listen to this song it reminds me of my dad, John Davis, who was also the granddad of 7 and great-granddad of 12. He could fix anything, and showed it often while I was growing up. He came from that great era when you didn't throw stuff away, you fixed it or had it fixed by a "Frank D. Fixer". Dad was born in 1917, lived through the Great Depression as a boy and learned his core values from his parents and the environment of whose wonderful, Greatest Generation, years. Being a World War II veteran also helped shape who he was and how he got there.
"Frank D. Fixer was a handy man.
He could handle anything; he was my granddad.
He grew his own food, he fixed his own car.
I watched it all happen from our back yard.
He'd reinvent the part to fix the broken home.
He'd restore the heart".
One of my favorite "Fix-it" stories with my Dad was when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I had gotten a new bicycle for Christmas. Several months later the coaster brake was locking up every time I applied the brakes. So I asked Dad to take a look at it. A few days later he got around to working on my bike. He was in his basement work shop that was cluttered with tools, radio and TV equipment, large boxes and all kinds of junk. I walked into the work shop as he was hammering away on my bike, but he didn't notice me. He had the bike on his work bench, turned up-side-down and had the gearing & brake mechanism exposed. A bright work light was shining on the spot where he was tapping with a hammer. Suddenly, a small piece of the brake connection to the gears broke off and went flying. At that, he uttered the "F" word. Now, this was the first time I had ever heard him drop the f-bomb. Almost simultaneously, he glanced up to see that I had entered the work shop so he knew I heard him.
He pretty much ruined my bicycle that day. Afterward, we never spoke of his lost temper and him using the "F" word in my presence. He never apologized for the language but he did for breaking my bike. The truth was that I had done something while riding on the bike that broke part of the mechanism before he ever starting working on it.
A few days went by and I was hoping for a new bike. After all, that was my only form of transportation and I rode that bike everywhere. I didn't ask Dad for a new one but I figured he would do the "right thing" and get me a bike since he had ruined my old one. He knew the bike was broken before he started work on it, but he always tried to fix things no matter how bad they were broken. There was no way he was going to buy me a new bike that I had broken and that was less than 6 months old. Sure, he helped mess it up more by his hammering on the open gears but it was my bike, therefore my responsibility.
After another week of being without my "ride" he returned it to me and the gears and brake were working perfectly. Dad could fix anything! Or, was it "Frank D. Fixer".
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