Would-Be Mr. Fixit Learns the Hard Way, Then the Hopeful Way

Once upon a time there was a homeowner who wanted to install a garbage disposal beneath his kitchen sink.

Now, this homeowner--let’s call him Jim--was determined that for once in his life he was going to do the job himself and do it right. He was going to save a prim 60 bucks in labor charges. He was going to emerge from the task confirmed in his own competence.

So, with faith in Emerson Electric Co.--let’s call it the In-Sink-Erator Company of America--and its installation manuals, he started in.

He disassembled the disposal and laid out the parts and checked and rechecked their identities. He studied each step of the installation process like a Talmudic scholar, breasting the bewildering stream of terms like “flange” and “lock ring” and “negative polarity.” He rehearsed each step twice, talking himself through it aloud before executing it.

And in a period of time so unexpectedly brief it could only be termed shocking, there was the glistening blue-and-silver disposal, snugged to the underside of the sink and tentacled to the dishwasher, drain trap and electrical outlet.

Jim flicked the power switch.

The disposal hummed like a contented pensioner.

Incomparably pleased, he ran the dishwasher, as prescribed, to test its drainage through the disposal.

It flooded.

Water welled from its seams and cascaded to the floor and drowned the installation manual of the In-Sink-Erator Company of America.

*

Last week, in a workshop-classroom at West Valley Occupational Center in Woodland Hills, Anthony Palos stood before the seven adult students in his home repair class. In his hands he held a shiny new blue-and-silver In-Sink-Erator. He was pointing to a small protrusion on it.

He was saying, “Now, if you don’t take a screwdriver and punch out the metal plug inside this opening before you install the disposal, what’s going to happen? Right, your dishwasher’s not going to drain.”

Palos is a licensed builder, a 35-year-old man given to blue jeans and necktied flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up on his forearms so his hands are freer to be hands-on. He’s proud of what he teaches, proud too of the miter saws, drill presses, routers and brad-nailers that fill the place with their aura of exactitude.

“I know someday my students will actually be using the knowledge from this class,” he said. “I don’t know the last time I had to do trigonometry out in the field, but I’ve certainly had to do a wall outlet or two.”

The people who attend the class, an offering of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Division of Adult and Career Education, pay $45 to attend the 20-week course. Class is held Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. It touches on a wide range of home repair subjects, including electricity, plumbing, carpentry, roofing, kitchen installation and ceramic tiling.

Some of the students come to learn basic skills so they can make livings. Others come to acquire greater control, financial and mechanical, over their domestic domains than is exercised by people like Jim.

Student Millie Gotovac, a 46-year-old homemaker and mother of three, showed off a perfect, scallopy dovetail joint she had fashioned from two slats of wood, using a template and a router. “This is how you make corners of a drawer so that they’re strong,” she said.

Gotovac, an ebullient woman who emigrated from Croatia 24 years ago, signed up for the course for two reasons.

“First, it’s for me to learn if I can do something myself. When you see something being done here, and do it with your own hands, you remember it better,” she said. “But if I don’t feel comfortable to do it myself and have to hire someone, when I interview him, I’ll know if he has the knowledge to do the job or not.”

Ruben Linares, the 21-year-old manager of a Van Nuys apartment building, regards the class as a step toward a better career.

“This class is perfect for me,” he said, looking up from the small ceramic-top table he was building. “What a manager needs to know is how to fix things, and this gives me more advantages and experience. Now I can feel comfortable going to a bigger place if I want to.”

And it was of necessity that Yu Chen turned from working with words to working with wood, wire, drywall and PVC pipe. Chen, 42, was a television reporter in his native China, which he left three years ago. He struggles with English, but knows that the language of mechanical competence falls persuasively on all ears.

“If my English is not very good, I have to work with my hands, and after I learn, maybe I can work for somebody, or open a little company, and when people don’t call me, I can make furniture,” he said. “This is my plan.”

And what deeper source of home repair work than earthquake- and weather-tossed Southern California? “Here almost everybody has a house, and almost all houses have problems,” Chen said. “So if I learn this--always I have job.”

*

A person could argue that there is no more satisfying wisdom than that which understands how the things we’ve surrounded ourselves with in our most private spaces actually work, and what to do about it when they don’t.

This wisdom about things comes in two kinds: the bitter kind, which is all deflated hubris and waterlogged, misconstrued how-to manuals, and the hopeful kind derived from hands-on instructors in the ageless tradition of masters and apprentices.

That Jim character, he really ought to sign up.

Jim flicked the power switch. The disposal hummed like a contented pensioner.