Projects II: Was It Always Thus? … and A New Commonality in the Antigone and Bob Story

Discussing my Projects post with Support Worker Tahlia, I asked her if she is satisfied with things she can buy.  She said ‘yes, but I’m not providing for somebody with unique needs like Antigone’.  This led me to consider the question: Was It Always Thus? about my habit of Bobifying everything.

Houses

My mind went to houses.  I noticed the window I had installed over our kitchen sink, and I remembered our previous rental house in Northcote, into which I installed a large window (as a condition of taking on the rental contract) and later a sliding glass back door to replace the original hinged door with small window.  Then I remembered ‘The Rock’ (16 Sargent St, Hanover NH USA) a rental (7-person) share house I lived in when at university from 1984-1987 – I initially stayed in the downstairs ‘bedroom’ which was separated from the dining room with a curtain covering an open double-door frame.  I wasn’t happy with that, so I made a ‘wall’ – clamped in place to avoid fastening directly into walls of a rental house.

It was always thus.

Early Memories

Yesterday’s was a shower reflection.  Today’s was a running reflection.  When did my Bobifying start? 

My earliest memory of Bobifying something was when I made a roof for my bike for a Grade 5 assignment to invent something.  It is lovely that Dad was supportive and helpful as I built a roof attached to both sides of my handlebars and the back of my bike.  It prevented the bike from steering (which no doubt he knew in advance), but was a starting point at learning about iterative design – working towards a general goal and refining a design in stages until reaching a satisfactory solution.  The only specific construction project I remember earlier than that was making a billy-cart at cubs, but I don’t remember being much more than a spectator with that.

Other early memories include:

• Together with Dad, we created storage for the family canoe, and later for a sail-boat, suspended from the carport roof, over the top of the two cars.  They were suspended from pulleys with a rope going through a hole in the wall into Dad’s workshop room where it redirected down with another pulley and we had a ‘block & tackle’ (two multiple pulleys with many ropes in between to allow one to lift a heavy weight with ease).
• For the sabot sail-boat, we built a ‘cradle’ to support it on the beach during rigging and for transport. 

(There is a commonality between the towel rails installed at the ends of the sabot cradle which assisted lifting it up to load onto car roofracks and the lifting rail I recently added onto the back of our bike for the same purpose.)

• For Mum, I installed shelving around the house, such as the shelves in the hallway over door frames where we stored four boxes of camping gear.

Interesting that my memories with Mum and Dad were both about home modifications for storing stuff.  Having grown up during the depression and WWII years, they were used to frugality and had developed hoarding tendencies.  As had Antigone’s parents.  Antigone has a story about moving to a small house in Cremorne (near Richmond) and not having room for her sofa.  Rather than get rid of it, she stored it until she moved to a larger house.  She stored it where it was not in the way – above the door frames in the front hall. 

She is the only other person I know with a personal story about storing stuff above door frames the hall of a house.

Bobifying my things and my home has been part of my life for over 50 years.

Cars

Other early memories include cars:

• As an 18-year-old in 1983, Uncle Dicky gave me a 1961 Morris Major which was in bits in his front yard.  He mentored me as I restored and painted it – bright red.

• A few years later in California, I did a similar project with a 1968 Volvo 122.  I replaced original door linings with wood and glued a wood veneer over the dashboard.  Sheepskin seat covers and a paint job with black spray cans completed the job.

Bikes

Bobifying bikes was a regular feature of our lives – as mentioned in the post about our tandem, (when we first got the words: Bobify (v), Bobification (n), Bobified (adj)).  In 2008 we shipped our tandem to Broome for a holiday.  It was too large for Qantas to carry, so I had to pack it in a bike-box and send it ahead by Greyhound Bus.  This was logistically challenging and meant we were without our bike for too long. 

On future Broome trips, we hired tandem bikes from Broome Cycles.

In 2011 and 2013, rental bikes (lacking our Bobifications) were difficult for us – what we like to carry is too big and heavy for a front basket.

From 2014, on such trips we carried a few tools with us and temporarily installed on rental bikes the Bobifications we required, including:

• pedals with toe clips and shock cord between them,
• luggage rack on which we could strap a milk crate,
• frame lock and bike stand.

Buildings

Antigone wanted our wedding party in the hall at the Northcote Uniting Church.  I thought it was too shabby, so I organised with the minister Darryl Colless to renovate the hall.  The church bought the paint and I organised a work team to clean and repaint the shabby bits.  To improve acoustics and music, we installed sound baffles hanging from the rafters at both ends. 

People attending weddings like to give to the wedding couple.  We were middle-aged and didn’t need more stuff.  In lieu of wedding gifts, we invited people to contribute to us and our celebration in one of three ways:

• for musically-inclined people to contribute to the entertainment, coordinated by Ernie Gruner
• for culinary-inclined people to bring a dish for the vegetarian feast, coordinated by Lorraine Tighe and Yolly Ingley (It was an amazing feast. Antigone’s brother Mina’s thinking-outside-the-square contribution of a sheep on a spit was appreciated by the meat-eaters.)
• to participate in a hall painting weekend a few weeks before the wedding.

As well as enjoying our wedding party in the Bobified hall at Northcote Uniting Church, we got to enjoy the visual and acoustic improvements many times thereafter, at:

• future rehearsals of our choir Shaking the Tree, and
• concerts by Shaking the Tree and Boite events.