Listening with Empathy
When I attended the Church of the Brethren in Des Moines, Iowa, as a teenager, our congregation was a rich mix of urban and rural families. Having a farm friend in that weekly location offered me an education that prepared me for later life experiences involving auto and tractor mechanics.
Having three much older sisters and no brothers, I was at a loss for other male maturation experiences like learning about sex, sports, and most importantly anything having to do with auto mechanics. My dad wasn’t a mechanic. I never knew him to ever fix anything in particular, he had a friend for that--and there was no way he was going to discuss sex and the facts of life with me--(that was Mom’s department, so you know how that went, "I've been expecting this. I've got some books you should read.)... Sports, on the other hand, Dad could talk all night. What I needed was a mechanic mentor.
The fact that I had much older parents, I was expected to listen and not talk so much. Of course, I always did what I was told. My excellent listening skills proved useful much of my life even if I had to make things up on occasion. Sometimes as a kid, I was tested about listening, especially if I had developed a glassy stare at inanimate objects and was suspected to have dosed off with my eyes open.
My listening skills paid off at school, just like my folks said they would. I perfected utilizing subtle facial expressions that included smiles, eye contact, frowns combined with hand-to-chin gestures, and infrequent wiping of my eyes and nose during subject appropriate content. In some cases burying my face-to-arm was employed if I had been sleep deprived the night before. Teachers never caught on.
Although the subjects of girls, sex and sports were relatively important to young men as they matured, nothing could turn heads in our church youth group meetings as the talk of tools, car and truck engine rebuilding, transmission swapping, or custom wheels and tires. The second best thing in that realm was tractor wrenching, especially conversations about rebuilding Farmalls, Deeres, Fords, Masseys, Allis-Chalmers, Cases, or Minneapolis-Molines, to name what I can remember just now.
Having three much older sisters and no brothers, I was at a loss for other male maturation experiences like learning about sex, sports, and most importantly anything having to do with auto mechanics. My dad wasn’t a mechanic. I never knew him to ever fix anything in particular, he had a friend for that--and there was no way he was going to discuss sex and the facts of life with me--(that was Mom’s department, so you know how that went, "I've been expecting this. I've got some books you should read.)... Sports, on the other hand, Dad could talk all night. What I needed was a mechanic mentor.
The fact that I had much older parents, I was expected to listen and not talk so much. Of course, I always did what I was told. My excellent listening skills proved useful much of my life even if I had to make things up on occasion. Sometimes as a kid, I was tested about listening, especially if I had developed a glassy stare at inanimate objects and was suspected to have dosed off with my eyes open.
My listening skills paid off at school, just like my folks said they would. I perfected utilizing subtle facial expressions that included smiles, eye contact, frowns combined with hand-to-chin gestures, and infrequent wiping of my eyes and nose during subject appropriate content. In some cases burying my face-to-arm was employed if I had been sleep deprived the night before. Teachers never caught on.
Although the subjects of girls, sex and sports were relatively important to young men as they matured, nothing could turn heads in our church youth group meetings as the talk of tools, car and truck engine rebuilding, transmission swapping, or custom wheels and tires. The second best thing in that realm was tractor wrenching, especially conversations about rebuilding Farmalls, Deeres, Fords, Masseys, Allis-Chalmers, Cases, or Minneapolis-Molines, to name what I can remember just now.
A good memory and a secret little note-taking helped too when I offered something in the range of questions that only a real mechanic might know. Even if they disagreed about the answer, they were civil about it, not disparaging, which only served to build my acceptance in the group.
Then conversations might jump to water pumps, timing, gears, adjusting carburetor linkages, magneto problems, loader hydraulics, 3-point hook-ups, clutch adjustment, drawbars, fuel.
Then conversations might jump to water pumps, timing, gears, adjusting carburetor linkages, magneto problems, loader hydraulics, 3-point hook-ups, clutch adjustment, drawbars, fuel.
“Do any of you John Deere guys know about adjusting the oil pump on a A?” I’d ask.
“Have you ever busted your knuckles ...?” I’d grimace, using a palm to knuckle gesture.
“Oh yeah! When does a guy ever learn not to?” someone would agree.
I would’ve easily drawn a zero in any if these subjects if it wasn’t for my older farm kid friend, Robert Bachman, who was three or four years older than me, so add on ten more years of maturity and knowledge for all the responsibility that farm kids were given back then, versus the pansy-arsed existence I had as a city kid. and you can see why I respected him so, especially as I had nothing to do on weekends except watch Saturday morning cartoons and afternoon movies and play all the rest of the time. Robert and all the other farm kids my age in the world, were working outdoors from morning until night, seven days a week, learnin’ this important stuff. City kids didn’t know shit.
So it was that I listened to Robert attentively, pursing my lips and nodding affirmatively when he’d say, “You know, when you’re adjusting valves with shims ... You know, once you’ve determined the firing order, replacing spark plug wires on the distributor is . . . The firing order is different on a Chevy V8, than it is on a Ford V-8, so I ... It's not a seal, see, as much as it’s a slinger that slings the oil back into the motor,” I could almost imagine what it was he was talking about although I had never even lifted a 9/16ths open-ended wrench from a toolbox or at the very least opened a tractor cowling in my life.
I had figured out that even if I didn’t know a thing about it, just by listening to him, asking him about some little detail he had mentioned, engaging him in eye contact, nodding appropriately, and looking earnest, I would learn more about this stuff than if I had read a dozen books. I don’t think he ever caught on. Either that, or he felt sorry for me as a city kid who didn’t know the difference between a pulsator and an inflation, which I learned eventually when I started working at the Mid-America Dairymen farm supply store, back when dairy farmers still used DeLaval and Surge bucket milkers.
“Oh yeah! When does a guy ever learn not to?” someone would agree.
I would’ve easily drawn a zero in any if these subjects if it wasn’t for my older farm kid friend, Robert Bachman, who was three or four years older than me, so add on ten more years of maturity and knowledge for all the responsibility that farm kids were given back then, versus the pansy-arsed existence I had as a city kid. and you can see why I respected him so, especially as I had nothing to do on weekends except watch Saturday morning cartoons and afternoon movies and play all the rest of the time. Robert and all the other farm kids my age in the world, were working outdoors from morning until night, seven days a week, learnin’ this important stuff. City kids didn’t know shit.
So it was that I listened to Robert attentively, pursing my lips and nodding affirmatively when he’d say, “You know, when you’re adjusting valves with shims ... You know, once you’ve determined the firing order, replacing spark plug wires on the distributor is . . . The firing order is different on a Chevy V8, than it is on a Ford V-8, so I ... It's not a seal, see, as much as it’s a slinger that slings the oil back into the motor,” I could almost imagine what it was he was talking about although I had never even lifted a 9/16ths open-ended wrench from a toolbox or at the very least opened a tractor cowling in my life.
I had figured out that even if I didn’t know a thing about it, just by listening to him, asking him about some little detail he had mentioned, engaging him in eye contact, nodding appropriately, and looking earnest, I would learn more about this stuff than if I had read a dozen books. I don’t think he ever caught on. Either that, or he felt sorry for me as a city kid who didn’t know the difference between a pulsator and an inflation, which I learned eventually when I started working at the Mid-America Dairymen farm supply store, back when dairy farmers still used DeLaval and Surge bucket milkers.
I hadn't planned on working at the dairy store long, when the department manager told me he enrolled me into a week-long 'milking school' at Universal Milking Machine Co., in Albert Lea, Minnesota. I kid you not!
There I was in a school about milking machine operation and maintenance. Among other individuals from small towns across the Midwest, I learned about milk pipeline operation, vacuum pumps, parts, trouble shooting problems, and milking parlor set-up and design as it pertained to the 1970s, when automatic milkers were merely things of science fiction.
One of the highlights of this road trip was hearing George Harrison’s“While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” for the first time. I found this rendition on-line trying to substantiate my time-line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDs2Bkq6UU4
I was at the top of my game when I even went to the Big Show at the Iowa State Fair and worked a few hours each day at the Mid-America Dairymen, Inc., milking demonstration exhibit, sponsored by Universal Pipelines and Mueller Bulk Tanks, where live cows from the dairy cattle barns were milked in front of curious fair-goers, the whole bit. The best part of the whole gig was to be close to the 4H barns and all the farm girls who were about my age, although they intimidated me by asking questions of which they all knew the answers.
Working among farm boys and farm girls from across the state, I must have stood out like a horse in a cow show (as Jerry Solom used to say) and I certainly felt that way. I could bluff my way through at church, but not at the fair; I just didn’t look the part. My bravado went only so far and my confidence around them was even less.
Looking, if not important, at least potentially knowledgeable, I was there should anyone want to ask a question. I wore a Mid-Am cap, a short-sleeved uniform shirt with one of them stick-on name tags and apparently shorter-legged pants at least one of those days.
“Hi! Do you have a question? My name is Steve,” I said happily, trying to look quite the Company man.
There I was in a school about milking machine operation and maintenance. Among other individuals from small towns across the Midwest, I learned about milk pipeline operation, vacuum pumps, parts, trouble shooting problems, and milking parlor set-up and design as it pertained to the 1970s, when automatic milkers were merely things of science fiction.
One of the highlights of this road trip was hearing George Harrison’s“While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” for the first time. I found this rendition on-line trying to substantiate my time-line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDs2Bkq6UU4
I was at the top of my game when I even went to the Big Show at the Iowa State Fair and worked a few hours each day at the Mid-America Dairymen, Inc., milking demonstration exhibit, sponsored by Universal Pipelines and Mueller Bulk Tanks, where live cows from the dairy cattle barns were milked in front of curious fair-goers, the whole bit. The best part of the whole gig was to be close to the 4H barns and all the farm girls who were about my age, although they intimidated me by asking questions of which they all knew the answers.
Working among farm boys and farm girls from across the state, I must have stood out like a horse in a cow show (as Jerry Solom used to say) and I certainly felt that way. I could bluff my way through at church, but not at the fair; I just didn’t look the part. My bravado went only so far and my confidence around them was even less.
Looking, if not important, at least potentially knowledgeable, I was there should anyone want to ask a question. I wore a Mid-Am cap, a short-sleeved uniform shirt with one of them stick-on name tags and apparently shorter-legged pants at least one of those days.
“Hi! Do you have a question? My name is Steve,” I said happily, trying to look quite the Company man.
“Did you dress yourself?” a pre-pubescent fair-goer asked me. “Your socks are different colors.”
“Just my luck, dressing in the dark,” I answered. “I only have two colors of socks in my drawer. You’d think I could’ve got two to match.”
“Shoulda taken three out,” she said. “Are you a city kid?”
Thoreau had his Walden Pond.
ReplyDeleteWannaskaWriter has his Mikinaak Crick.
Same difference.
ReplyDeleteMilk those memories for all they’re worth.
Always carry an third sock. Good advice.
An anonymous reader emailed me this comment: What with today's Wannaskan Almanac post, today's Far Side post, https://www.thefarside.com/:
ReplyDeleteSpot on!
When I saw “empathy” in this post title, I almost swallowed the piece of candy I was savoring. Could it be? Has Wannaska Writer come over to the Buddhist way? Alas, this was not to be. Still, hearing tales of what “listening empathy” is to this writer, I admit, the Buddha himself might have joined in on the mechanical coming of age.
ReplyDeleteWhat stayed with me after reading the post was his father’s lack of skills of the mechanical type. That brought back memories of my own father who was a pilot and an A&P (aircraft and power plant) mechanic. In addition to teaching me to fly, he always invited me to help when he was doing engine overhauls. It was those two massive Pratt & Whitney, radial piston engines on the Beechcraft D18 that I remember best. Dad made me a motorhead.
All WW’s talk of farms and farm kids also brought back memories of another kind: hanging out with kids like that. The airport was surrounded by farms and their fields, as well as dairy cows (it was Wisconsin after all). I recall Tommy, the son of the nearest farmer. I used to walk with him when he brought the cows home in the late afternoon, switching the cows’ backs – the two of us walking barefoot in the mud and cow pies.
Ah WW, thanks for the memories, and for listening empathetically.
Awesome. Loved it, WW!
ReplyDelete