The Decline of The Garage

If you look at photos from the 1930's through the 1950's, you'll notice a lot of pictures of men driving their cars into the garage, working on their cars in the garage, and just standing in front of their garage. A garage used to be a place that a man got away from it all and tinkered, thought, or just drank a beer to alleviate whatever ailed him. Men from that bygone age discovered what many men of today have yet to learn: Things need to be fixed. Instead of calling the mechanic, the man of the house used to pull the family's automobile into his workshop and fix it his self. If furniture broke, it was by no means time to throw it out and buy anew; bring it into the garage and let Dad have a crack at it.

Nowadays, people are taking older homes of lore and renovating them to accustom the newer generation. We pull the phone wires out of the wall, put up drywall over plaster, and "transform" the garage into another bedroom. We don't need a place to fix things anymore, we need a place to store more of our stuff! And as we accumulate more and cherish less, we find ourselves farther and farther from what a man is: The provider of the family. Mom and Dad nowadays have the same vocations and chores. Wash clothes, sweep the floor, and bring the car to the mechanic. It's a sad state to see a man take pride in being able to bring his car into a mechanic; as if he were doing the work himself. Instead of making things last and understanding all the intricacies of his home, he simply shucks off responsibility and entrusts his own duty to a stranger.

Sit down in front of your computer day after day without ever handling caustic materials and risking your life in fulfillment of virtues stretching from time immemorial and you will lose the very foundation from whence men originated. Take the "safe" way, and you're in more danger than you could possibly fathom.

"...The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God." Luke 12:16b-21

Be content friends, and take care of what you have, seeing as it will pass away soon enough anyway.