Jack of all trades and a master of none

My dad was not an educated man. He quit school at an early age to help support his family. His family called him Oliver, but most people knew him as Pat. He was smart and was an inventor of sorts. He created many gadgets of which most of them actually worked!

One thing he designed was a small windmill with a stuffed figure of a man which he named Woodrow, who seemed to be running the windmill. The more wind there was, the faster Woodrow worked! Woodrow was extremely popular with people who traveled along S. Ave G. Kids especially loved watching Woodrow work as they walked back and forth to school.

Through my life there have been numerous occasions when I had the need to do a particular thing which I had never done before, or even had the need to know before. One particular case was when I bought Margarette Mitchell’s framing equipment many years ago. It was because I had started doing art and was spending a great amount of money on custom framing. I dove into frame-making with only one afternoon of instruction from Margarette and pursued it with a vengeance! Before long I opened my own custom framing business that I ran for 35 years.

When my children were young, I directed children’s choir for many years. At one point, I had a small Jr. Hi. group. I felt that it would be great if we had a guitar added to the group. Sadly, none of the kids played guitar…so I decided that if we were going to have a guitar, I would need to learn to play the guitar! I bought a student guitar and a beginner’s book & learned to play basic chords to accompany my Jr. Hi. group. Later I developed it to the point that my friend, Kay Andrews & I formed a duo. We played & sang at area events for several years. We had a great time. She still plays and teaches.

It served my purpose in that span of time and when that time passed, I no longer used the skill. I probably couldn’t even tune my guitar today! A saying from my brother-in-law was: “use it or lose it!” This is absolutely true.

Many of us are actually a “jack of all trades and a master of none.” But, we should keep pursuing our interests, and developing our talents to our own enjoyment.