Huh?
You always hope for anyone traveling through their senior senior years that they keep their health and, more importantly, preserve their mental abilities. My father complains that his memory is not what it used to be, forgetting names, sometimes searching for a word for a while, wondering if it's a sign of gears slipping in the mind.
"I tried to figure out why that would be," he continued, "I should have smelled gas."
What on earth was he talking about, I wondered. And what was he doing worrying about something at two o'clock in the morning. My father sleeps like a rock - all night. Always has. He just doesn't wake up at two o'clock in the morning.
"So I took apart the bowl and it was full of crud," he continued.
Bowl? What bowl? What crud?
"At two o'clock in the morning?" I replied, still wondering where this all came from, or where it was going.
He went on. "So I cleaned it out, but I'm going to have to clean out the carburetor and probably change the points and plugs, too. The gas has been in there for a long time."
It was starting to make sense. We had used his old Ford 8N tractor a few weeks ago when it just quit and wouldn't start again. I hadn't thought about it since, but he obviously had. Apparently he's been in problem solving mode for a while, irritated that something in his arsenal of fun but practical lawn and farm equipment wasn't working right.
"I need to drain the gas, but need some help holding the can and funnel and fuel line so we don't get gas all over," he finished.
He wasn't losing it. Quite to the contrary. At 87, he's still Mr. Fixit, evaluating possible causes, planning an attack, and doing stuff himself rather than running to the nearest mechanic or dealer as most of us do. He may be a bit slower than in the past, taking a little more time, and every great once in a while waking up at two o'clock in the morning to think it through, but thankfully he's still very much thinking and doing.
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