BRACK: Mr. Fixit strikes in Charleston

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher  |  Years back when my father was a boy, he knew his father could fix just about anything. He marveled at his father’s skills, not understanding how he would ever be able to build shelves, craft furniture, fix electrical outlets or repair motors.

Only years later — maybe when I was asking my dad how he knew how to fix stuff — did he understand that with age comes experience. He recalls how when he was gazing at his dad fixing stuff, his dad had been on the earth several years and had gained knowledge over time about how to use tools correctly. As a boy, he didn’t understand that learning to repair stuff took time and wasn’t a miracle. As an adult, he understood that he gained knowledge over years to become more comfortable with mending things around the house.

Unlike my grandfather, I’ve never been blessed with great mechanical skills. But over the last week, I’ve been kind of stunned at the things that have been improved or fixed around the house:

• Installed 16 gigabytes of RAM to increase the speed of my desktop computer;
• Opened a stuck drawer in the laundry area (without breaking it) where the detergent is stored;
• Replaced a broken fountain pump, including repairing the damaged intake hose;
• Replaced a non-functioning, out-of-the-way spotlight in the kitchen with an energy-efficient LED bulb;
• Created a filter from parts for an aquarium;
• Reattached a wooden threshold that had become unglued;
• Prepared a winter salad garden and planted cabbage and lettuces; and
• Smoked four pounds of pork into some of the best barbecue that I’ve eaten lately.  (Yes, I saved the best for last.)

Twenty years ago, I might not have been able to do a good job at some of these things. But with age, as I now understand as did my father before, comes the experience to solve little problems.

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My most recent policy column in our sister publication, Statehouse Report, exposes how Gov. Nikki Haley put the state Department of Health and Environmental Control between a rock and hard place over a probe of abortion clinics.

Haley

The whole brouhaha was a strategy by Haley to look more conservative to GOP presidential hopefuls, especially since she self-professed that she wouldn’t turn down anyone who talked to her about being a GOP vice presidential running mate. She’s going after clinics because conservative credentials suffered after she rightly dumped the Confederate flag from the Statehouse grounds. In fact, that pushed up her poll numbers among Democrats and blacks.

So while I figured Charleston Currents’ readers would prefer to hear about Mr. Fixit than a rant about the governor’s tactics, here’s an excerpt (or you can click here for the full column):

“Yes, to get headlines, Haley used DHEC, whose board she appoints. But it didn’t turn out exactly how she wanted. Instead of a big press conference about the findings, DHEC quietly released the information at one of the slowest times of the week for the media — Friday afternoon, when most reporters are finishing stories they’ve worked on for a week.

“What’s important to take away are three things:

• None of the violations cited by DHEC directly put any women or their health at risk. But anything not up to snuff — even minor paperwork problems — need to be brought into compliance. The law is the law.
• Thousands of dedicated DHEC employees have been embarrassed because the agency was dragged through the muck because of politics.
• This incident is a prime example of how the passions of South Carolinians are being manipulated by a hyper-ambitious governor who wants to score points in a much larger political game.”