TYie IVorf d's 

 Hiahest Tides 



Creating Spectacular Seascapes,^ 



Rigfit iiou'. while you 're thinking about it. calljoryour 



Free Outdoor Adventure Guide 



to bmutifiii. unspoiled, unavwded Nav Brunswick, 

 Canada. Read about activities mid value packages for 

 xa kayaking, cycling, bird-watching, whale-watching 

 hiking and canoeing adventures in this land by the sea. 



Mkxvixils new 

 i-8®®-5fai-oi23 

 New Bnm.s\vii.:l^ff 

 fox: (506)453-5370 



Neil' Friends. -^ New Values. New Adventures. 



Ne^v ^s. Brunswick 



Canada 



Haven't you always wanted a weather station? The 

 Wfeather Wizard JU combines all the most requested 

 features into one incredible package! 

 FEATURES INCLUDE: 



• Inside & • Wind Chill • Instant Metric 

 Outside Temps . Alarms Conversions 



• Wind Speed . Hjghs & Lows ' Optional PC 

 & Direction . o ■ 1 11 r^_.■ Interface 



-r- o r, • Rainfall Option 



• Time & Date 



Larger Display 9^ Compass Rose 



Order today: 



1-800-678-3669 



M-F 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time • 



FAX 1-510-670-0589 • M/C and VISA 

 One-year warranty • 30-day money-back guarantee 



Davis Instruments 1 



3465 Diablo Ave,, Hayward, CA 94S45 i 



eler on it, pulling an engine is as easy as 

 sucking the pimento out of a cocktail 

 olive. 



I love tools, but I have my limits, and I 

 suspect that humanity does too. Two 

 things in my life have generated and agi- 

 tated (in that order) those suspicions dur- 

 ing the past couple of weeks. First, I sent a 

 note to our household insurance carrier re- 

 questing coverage for my shop and mod- 

 est set of tools. The woman who handles 

 our account wrote back, telling me I would 

 have to list all my tools and the value of 

 each one. I want you to imagine for a mo- 

 ment going to your agent to get collision 

 coverage on your new Taurus and having 

 that person say to you, "I'll need a list of 

 all its parts and their value." You could get 

 a second job and earn enough to buy an- 

 other Taurus before you could put together 

 an inventory like that! 



I went out to my shop and looked 

 around. Where would I start an inventory? 

 Socket wrenches? Metric sockets? 

 Crow's-foot metric sockets? Three- 

 eighths-inch drive crow's-foot metric 

 sockets? Wobble-mount, three-eighths- 

 inch drive, crow's-foot metric sockets? 

 The good set from Sears that I don't like to 

 get dirty, or the cheap set from Taiwan that 

 is missing the 9/16-inch socket (which 

 doesn't really matter, I guess, because for 

 some reason it never tit a 9/16-inch bolt 

 anyway)? 



Inventory my tools? Lady, you must be 

 crazy! 



The second life-crisis that focused my 

 attention on tools was when Lovely Linda 

 asked me to install a window air condi- 

 tioner in her studio. Easy enough. I 

 grabbed a hammer, a screwdriver, a tool 

 knife (to cut plastic sealers), and a crescent 

 wrench and headed up the stairs. I pulled 

 the machine out of its box, pried loose the 

 window I had painted shut last summer, 

 and got to work. As is her custom, instead 

 of letting me get on with the job, Linda 

 made a nuisance of herself and insisted 

 that I waste even more time by reading the 

 instructions. 



That done, I proceeded to do what I 

 would have done anyway. But when it 

 came time to adjust the side curtains 

 (never mind what side curtains are; just 

 take my word for it that the time did come 

 when I needed to adjust them), I found that 

 the screws were not the good, old-fash- 

 ioned slotted kind, so I had to go down two 

 flights of stairs and out to my shop to get a 

 Phillips screwdriver. When I got back up- 

 stairs, I found that the screws weren't even 

 Phillips screws (the ones with the little 



cross on the top); these were something- 

 else-head screws with a little star on the 

 top. I don't know what they're called and I 

 don't have a driver for them. I took a hack- 

 saw and cut a groove across each one so I 

 could use a regular screwdriver. (Early in 

 this process Linda took our daughter An- 

 tonia and fled to a safe house in a city not 

 far from here.) 



It's the same thing these days with nails, 

 bolts, brackets, zippers, staples, knife 

 blades, nuts, washers, whatevers. A bolt is 

 no longer a bolt. There are Torx drivers, 

 Allen wrenches, Pitman pullers, bastard 

 files. I can't say for sure, but I think it all 

 started with that jerk Phillips who in- 

 vented the aberrant screwdriver. I was 

 ready to tell him off, but when I checked 

 my dictionary I found that Henry F. 

 PhiUips died in 1958. Just as well: if I had 

 done something that stupid, I wouldn't 

 want to be around when Roger L. Welsch 

 found out either. 



As soon as Mr. Philhps worked his evil, 

 every nut-case in the world wanted a 

 screwdriver named after him, and there 

 went the pure and beautiful principle of a 

 toolbox that could be carried by something 

 less than dump truck. Moreover, different 

 groups use different terms for tools. Take 

 men and women, for example. My daugh- 

 ter Joyce is painting our kitchen cabinets 

 and not ten minutes ago she came into my 

 office and asked where she could find "a 

 teeny-weensy sharp-end screwdriver" and 

 "squinch-nose pliers." 



Someone somewhere along the fine has 

 taken my modest fetish and degraded it 

 into an obsession. A perversion. Even 

 though my tractors don't need all those 

 tools, all those tools need me. Now, when I 

 cast about for the only 9/32-inch box-end 

 crescent wrench I own, I can't find it. I 

 can't find it because it is buried some- 

 where under all those other tools I need for 

 installing dumb things like window air 

 conditioners. The only solution is to buy 

 another 9/32-inch box-end wrench, or 

 maybe two, so when I can't find the second 

 one, I can maybe find the third. And then 

 maybe a spare I can keep in my last-resort 

 drawer. 



The natural consequence of that process 

 is that on my next project I can't find my 

 7/16-inch ratchet wrench because it sud- 

 denly seems that all I can find is a 9/32- 

 inch box-end wrench. Maybe I need a cou- 

 ple more 7/16-inch ratchets. And so it 

 goes. 



Folklorist Roger L. Welsch lives on a tree 

 farm in Dannebrog, Nebraska. 



1 6 Natural History 4/94 



