By Jim Hagarty
1992
It is popular to think nowadays that our world is fresh out of pioneers and the pioneering spirit. We have all become so safe and so secure. It seems that, for the descendants of the people who braved the wide oceans in rickety ships to come to new lands in North America, to take a chance today means to try an Italian meal we haven’t yet tasted or to take in a concert of classical music when all we’ve ever liked is country.
Where are our great explorers and risk-takers in 1992? The Jacques Cartiers and the Sir Edmund Hillarys, the Amelia Earharts and the John Glenns? Where are our modern Marco Polos and Sir Francis Drakes?
Argue with me if you like, but I think I know where they are.
They’re down in the basements of their homes and in their kitchens, bathrooms and garages, taking on that biggest chance of all: the home-renovation project. They are known as do-it-yourselfers and they truly are the last people of that brave and fearless breed which will head out into the frontier without a clue as to where they’re going and very little idea of how to get there.
Where Christopher Columbus faced uncertainties both on the oceans and on the lands he discovered and conquered, it is sure he never tried to hook up a potlight or wire up an electrical outlet with absolutely no knowledge of how to go about it. Do-it-yourselfers might take 10 minutes to get the new potlight holder out of the box it came in, let alone install it, but this does not discourage them. In retrospect, can sailing around blindly in a ship looking for a New World compare to the difficulty and danger of wiring a home when you have never wired a home before?
That same spirit that guided Magellan and Frobisher dwells within the modern world’s do-it-yourselfers. They set out from their harbours (the building supplies stores) and fan out in all directions, heading for their destinations (their houses and garages) with all the hope and trepidation of those early voyageurs. They have no idea if they will succeed in their endeavours and in fact, have been told by the skeptics around them (their wives, their husbands, their doctors, their building supplies store owners, their life insurance salespersons) that they are certain to fail. And yet they press on, sure of the visions they hold within their heads.
Those visions include beautiful homes and cottages, well-groomed lawns and gardens and refurbished automobiles and boats. But like Columbus who failed to find a route to India by sailing West, today’s do-it-yourselfers fall short sometimes in accomplishing their goals. The true believers, however, will never admit to that failure. And that’s what sets them apart.
You see, professional home renovators are for the feint of heart. They’re those safe shores of the homeland that people with too little courage will never leave. Professional renovators will never, for example, wreck not one but two sheets of drywall trying to cut out the holes for electrical wall sockets and switches. They will never touch two wrong wires together and watch their lives – and electricity – flash in front of their eyes. They will never, while taking down a wall, saw halfway through a live electrical wire.
Sure, they may actually live to tell their grandchildren about the lives they spent doing complex home renovations. But compared to today’s intrepid do-it-yourselfers, what stories will those poor grandkids have to tell when they are grandpa’s age?
One day, museums will be built to honour the achievements of do-it-yourselfers everywhere. Those museums will be erected by do-it-yourselfers, appropriately enough. It might be worthwhile visiting them soon after they open and before they fall down.
