Many of you have a hobby or two. You may like to putter in your garden, sew, knit, cook, collect things like stamps or coins.
Perhaps you have a little more daring hobby, such as rock climbing or hang gliding or some other test of one’s mettle, to pass your free time.
I’ve had a hobby or two in my lifetime, the first as a boy in Alaska, with very long winter nights, when I buried myself in stamp collecting. I even had a matchbook collection.
Today, I satisfy myself with art, or writing. It wasn’t always like this.
Last week I told you about my interest in restoring an old car — not just any old car, but a vintage Mercury. That never happened.
I did work in an auto body shop for a while as a teen, and learned just enough of the skill to be dangerous. Over the next 15 years or so, I would have a little dent or a scratch on the family car, and I was able to repair it, and actually do a creditable job.
When our five offspring entered their teens I found myself frequently fixing little fender-benders, rather than turn it in to the insurance company and have our rates increased.
I had accumulated a few body repair tools, and would do the repairs in our garage or driveway.
Then l our eldest daughter, Michele, had an accident with her own little car (a Mazda GLC). One evening returning from her job in a nearby restaurant she was T-boned by a drunk driver and pretty much totaled her car. Thank God she wasn’t injured.
I had to contact our insurance agent, and I told him that I was going to do the work myself, and submitted a bid. He promptly paid up.
I told Michele that I needed to buy the parts and paint supplies and a few tools I didn’t have but, “not to worry,” there would be some money left over and she could have that. She was happy.
It was a big job. I had to completely replace the right rear portion of her car, from the passenger side door, back to the hatchback. It was a major project. I had to cut away all the damaged metal, and align and weld in the new panel. Then I had to paint and finish the car.
When it was done, it looked like new. I took it to our insurance agent so he could check it over.
In a word (or two) he couldn’t believe I’d done it in our garage. After looking it all over, he asked: “Would you be interested in doing repairs for some of my clients?”
Unfortunately, I told him I would. Thus began my “accidental” hobby.
I was a sales manager for a large company and when I wasn’t traveling I had some free time and I didn’t mind the work, in fact, sometimes I actually enjoyed it. So, as time went on, I’d get a call from him, letting me know he was sending someone over and could I look at the car and give the driver an estimate of repairs.
I’m not sure if the neighbors were as pleased as I was with the setup, you know there is plenty of noise involved with body work, and the smell of the paint — and potential overspray. Let me say this: I should have gone back to my stamp collecting.
What a “hobby” I had. I was seldom without someone else’s car in the garage that I was working on. I had amassed most of the tools a full-sized body shop would have and, for the most part, my “customers” were pleased. In fact, they started sending their families and friends cars to me, and I was busy — too busy — for a “hobby.”
Thankfully, the company I worked for was in Dallas, and we lived in the Houston area, so I didn’t have someone looking over my shoulder, and, I did do my job for them adequately, so I had no flak from my boss.
For the most part, I used paint products that were relatively benign, as long as I worked in a well ventilated area and used an effective respirator to breathe through. It was when the company I bought my paint from, suggested I use one of the paints that required an additive, or “hardener,” that I began having problems.
Using some of the new paint, I had finished the car I was working on and had gone into the house to clean up for dinner out with friends. We met up, had a nice meal and I soon began to feel like I had the worst flu I’d ever had. I began having chills and ached from head to toe. I went to bed as soon as we got home.
The next day, I felt fine. “Must have been a bug,” I thought. Well, it happened again, just a few days later, and I discovered that my respirator was not working for the new paint.
It was then that my wife Sharon, suggested I hang up the spray guns, put away the body tools and take up another, safer hobby.
Stamp collecting seemed a safe choice.
The Link LonkOctober 11, 2020 at 02:27AM
https://www.reporterherald.com/what-a-life-stamp-collecting-is-safer-than-painting-cars
What a Life: Stamp collecting sounds like a breath of fresh air - Loveland Reporter-Herald
https://news.google.com/search?q=fresh&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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