Fostering Initiative
West LA, Circa 1982.
My Dad put a lock on the TV plug so we couldn’t watch any television. It was a punitive move for sure and I believed we were losing TV privileges for a full week. Whatever the actual time was, the threat and weight was felt.
On day 2. my older brother suggested we cut the lock off. He was the mastermind and I was his crony or stooge (ages 10 & 8) . We went in the garage and found a hacksaw. The locking mechanism was very basic, it had 3 parts, a steel tube with holes positioned so that a plug could be inserted, and two pad locks would ensure the plug never makes it to the wall socket. Diabolical.
So we had the idea, we had the tools, now it was time to execute. If you can imagine, it’s not easy for an 8 or a 10 year old to grip or position a padlock to be sawed off. We weren’t strong enough to carry the TV into the garage and use my dad’s vice. On the family room floor, we tried several different ways of doing it that didn’t require our fingers to be right next to the blade but none of them worked. We tried kneeling on the mechanism, standing on the mechanism and nothing was working. The only way to do it was for one of us to hold it tight, risk our fingers, as the other sawed away. I recall switching back and forth because it was so difficult to hold the lock steady. My older brother was able to hold the lock twice as long as I could, moving the hacksaw back and forth was the cake job, no risk to the fingers and easy to hold. Normally, my brother’s strength advantage was a problem for me but in this situation, it gave me a gift; it allowed me to use the strength I had available and feel good about my contribution while appreciating my brother’s strength and not letting it make me feel like I was less, that I was weak.
When Dad got home and saw us watching TV, with his hacksaw 3 feet in front of the TV, his face lit up with joy just like Mr. Weasley’s face did when he learned his boys drove the flying car to Surrey and back in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:
I recall being very nervous about his ‘potential’ reaction to what we had done. Cutting that lock off seemed like a difficult task for my brother and me at the time; now that I’m a dad to 3 boys, I understand my dad’s reaction much better.
P.S.
Dear Dad,
You taught me so many valuable lessons; I’ll do my best to share them with your grandsons, my friends and anyone else that wanders by.
I love you lots.
Stay Skating,
Evan Gilstrap