Never buy a car in its first model year.

When I was growing up in Ponca City, Oklahoma, American automakers were about the whole game and they brought out radical revisions of their cars about this time each year. Most of my male classmates could tell you the exact model year for any passing American car on the road. The automaker's wholesale embrace of "planned obsolescence" changed manufacturing engineering permanently, although the annual cycle dissipated somewhat after the first OPEC oil crisis hit. [As an MIT professor pointed out on national radio that year, the most important thing to understand that it takes more energy to manufacture a car than that car will use in its lifetime. Therefore, it never makes energy sense to scrap a car to get a better mileage.] Dad's point was that when they redesign the essential features of a car (ignition, drive train, etc., not simply the size of the tailfins), there are many things that can go wrong, and sometimes disastrously so. The Ford Pinto gas tank is a classic case to most of my generation, though it postdates my father's advise on the subject. For the second time in the current century I have decided to ignore my father's advice. So in April Karen Kay and I drove to Virginia to pick up my new plug-in Prius hybrid car. Like my 2001 Prius, as a first-adopter I had to order the car on the web and then wait for the car to be be built and delivered. And like that earlier Prius, Toyota's strategy clearly seems to be to have a small group of first year buyers discover what couldn't be found in earlier testing. Thus, this year they only allowed dealers in twelve states to get the cars; hence, the trip to Virginia. The 2001 Prius definitely had its problems. The NiMH batteries for the electric motor would suck energy from the lead-acid battery used for the accessories and gas engine, thus resulting in the need to get a jump for its (golf-cart sized) lead acid battery. And Karen Kay had to use the warranty coverage to get a computer replacement in the car on a trip to Austin, Texas. The original Prius is still with us, has over 125,000 miles on the odometer, and finally had to have the battery replaced ($4000+). But, with that and other maintenance, it is probably good for another 125,000 miles. The new one has behaved itself well to date. We are about 500 miles form home on a 2500-mile journey to Cape Cod. The 2001 Prius mileage averaged in the low forties, this one is holding steady at about 53 mpg (as a hybrid). I say "as a hybrid" because at home I plug it in at night and do most of my day's driving around town on electricity. My roundtrip commute is slightly more than the roughly 15 miles I can get in EV (electric vehicle) mode, but I average over 100 mpg in both July and August (when we made no long out-of-town trips). And, thanks to a special program by our local power company -- a big thank you to IPL -- it costs about a penny a mile for eV operation and I have a smart meter and a 220V charging station at no cost to me. In the long run, even hybrids are a stopgap. But pure electrics like the Leaf and the Tesla are real hard to deal with when there is ice on the windshield and too low a battery charge to be able to both melt the ice and drive the car home. If I lived in Southern California, one of our family cars might be electric, but even the most dismal climate change enthusiasts don't expect that kind of warming for Indiana in the 21st century. Dad's advice was almost always good, so I had to think long and hard before violating it. (Both of my brothers have standard Priuses bought after the car had been available a few years.) But Dad also taught us to do what we believe in, and the need for Americans to adopt more energy efficient ways of doing things is high on what I believe. And it probably doesn't hurt that -- thanks in good measure to my parents assistance and encouragement -- I have more disposable income than they had. "A foolish consistency," Emerson said, "is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Daddism #2:Carry it one hand under! Part 2

The story is told that on the first day of practice, John Wooden, legendary basketball coach at the University of California at Los Angeles, had all players take off their shoes and socks and put them on again while he and the coaching staff watched. If any player failed to put the sock heel on his own heel or to properly tighten and tie the laces, that player had to do once more.. And, it is said, he even had players drop off the team rather than conform to what they considered trivial and/or demeaning.
But Coach Wooden's point was simple: The Devil really is in the details.

Remembering to carry the tray one hand under is a detail, but one which can avert the disaster of a spilled or broken load, just as a poorly mounted sock can wear a blister or a poorly tied shoe can lead to a stumble at a critical moment.

I am not enamored of details. My handwriting is sufficient proof to those forced to live through it, and it has taken me years to learn what my father seemed to know from his gut. Now he also knew that it meant that he couldn't try to achieve as many things. Of course, when you work 60+ hours/week in the back of a bakery, it limits what other achievements you can expect. So he tried to do each of the tasks systematically and to learn and apply the basics well.

Almost every Sunday morning before church he would be doing his "book work," that is, bringing the accounts for home and the shop up to date, paying bills, and trying to keep things running. By doing it in those early morning hours when no one else was around, he could concentrate on the details and be sure of the accuracy of the outcome.

Life is always a compromise. And while I have not been as good as he was at paying attention to the details, my life benefits from those times when I pull back, ask what I really need to achieve, and then putting in the detailed work it takes to bring about a transformation.

There are many things I would like to learn and to do, but my father's example tells me that unless I can put in the ante of careful participation, I really need to think about whether playing that particular game is worth it.

Daddism #2:Carry it one hand under!

At church a couple of weeks ago my wife and I were preparing for the noon coffee hour.  Two women were setting up for a celebration in conjunction with the event and they had bought a full iced sheet cake.  (Boy, would Dad be surprised at how much those cost now!)

I cringed as I watched it carried the thirty feet from the kitchen to the serving table.  She had one hand under each end of the cake's cardboard tray and was walking across the room in confidence.


That was the context in which I recall Dad's saying:  "Put one hand under!"  The reason:  the cardboard can (and occasionally does) buckle, thereby destroying the cake.   In college I took a free course from the student in table waiting from the head of food service at the Boston Hilton, and we were also taught similar methods for securely transporting trays of food and of tableware between kitchen and table.

Every profession has its tricks of the trade.  Minor but important rules (how do the uses of a ball peen hammer differ from a roofer's hammer, and what makes a hammer right for a given job?) that make all the difference in productivity.

But so does life itself.

Relationships are more important and more difficult than carrying cakes, but unless you can find the special ways in each relationship that support it, you will find it will break and lose its value.

Of course, most of the rules we learn unconsciously growing up.  Dad was very introverted and Mom was the opposite.   Thus, we three sons had a suite of choices for how to interact and even how to modulate for context;  I feel sorry sometimes for children raised by one parent, because they do not have the same conflict/synergy of relational notions that come about with two parents.  I can barely imagine what it must be like to have other adult family members in the home as well!

Fortunately, though, Dad was an experimenter, too.  So I learned that the rules could change, be created, and even be destroyed.  [Am I the only one left who knows how to check multiplication problems by casting out nines?]

And, my all to frequent mistakes in life and work have given me plenty of opportunity to change,  create, and destroy rules of life and work.  I have learned that a screw-up should be rare, so it is always worth the time to figure out how to avoid it in the future.

So, while you are considering New Year's resolutions, here's a suggestion:  Create at least one new rule for life and work in the coming month (and feel free to tell me and others about it through the comments).

And don't forget to keep a supportive hand under all life's fragile things.