Someone stopped by the bus the other day to talk about it. I answered his questions, but then as he was getting ready to go he said, "hey, thanks for keeping it going, I love knowing these things are out there, still running." He was the second person in as many months to say that to me. That evening I was at the grocery store and there was an early 1970s Ford Bronco at the gas pump. Maybe it was late 60s. I'm not a huge fan of Broncos. I'll probably never own one, but it was my kind of car -- well used with plenty of patina in the finish. It had been around and I thought, you know, I too am glad it's still running. Thanks for keeping it going. What is *it* though? I don't think that statement is about the car. Or rather, it's about more than just the car, it's about what the car represents: the past. Thanks for keeping this tiny thread of the past alive in the present. That thread becomes a path back. Thanks for the way back, the way home, thanks for keeping these things going, because in doing so, the memories we have of them also keep going. --- Some call this love of old things nostalgia. Usually this is a way of dismissing it without confronting it. That doesn't washed with me. First of all, nostalgia is only a bad thing when you're over invested a particular view of the world. There's nothing wrong with nostalgia, it's a valid thing to feel. This all actually in the history of the word. The word nostalgia did not always have the modern meaning, "wistful yearning for the past." The original meaning cut much deeper. Nostalgia used to mean a feeling of "pain, grief, and distress." This particular version of pain, grief, and distress was that which came to you from trying to "reach some place, escape, return, get home." Pain at the loss of home. Grief for something you cannot return to. A desire to escape. Wouldn't do to have a word that so neatly encapsulates a very common feeling about the modern world. Best water it down to "a wistful yearning." No, you don't really feel pain, that's wistfulness. Here, take a [soma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma_(Brave_New_World)), have a new car. The [word nostalgia comes from two Greek words](https://www.etymonline.com/word/nostalgia), *algos*, which gives us the pain, grief, distress, and *Nostos* the reaching for some place or returning home. *Nostos* is the part that interests me. Returning home. It has an Old English cognate, *genesen*, which means "to recover." There's also the Gothic *ganisan*, which means "to heal," which is getting much closer to what I think is actually at work here. This is the thread I think of when I see the Bronco, or a cast iron skillet, or an old wood plane, or an old appliances that still works, or old clothes not made of plastic. The feelings evoked by all these things are not a wistful yearning for another time, they're a feeling of pain at the loss of beautiful things that had meaning and value. It's a distress born of realizing that we need to recover those elements of the past that were better than what we have today. Not nostalgically better in our mind's eye, but tangibly, demonstrably better, obviously so to anyone who has used both the things from the past and those made today. It's not nostalgia in its modern definition. There's no yearning. It's more serious than that. Or if we're yearning for anything, we're yearning to heal the present. There's a book I've never read because I think all you need to know is in the title. It's by Neil Postman and it's called *Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future*. I assume the text covers the details. I also assume that on those I'd probably differ, but the idea that the way to a better future is through the past, strikes me as about right. Thanks for keeping it going, thanks for pointing the way. --- I didn't say anything to the Bronco. There was no one around. Maybe the steel and iron understand, I think they do, but talking to a car in an empty parking lot attracts attention. Besides, it's the person who's maintaining that connection that matters. It's their struggle to keep that thing working that is healing the present, building those bridges through the past into the future. All those people laboring to keep those bits of the past working in the present, that's what matters. Without them the objects are just rust and decay. Someone has to maintain them, recover them, repair them. This is the bond to the past, recognizing that kindred spirit in the person behind the car. In a culture that prizes the new and chucks the old without a thought, those of us who appreciate the old, the time-tested, the well-worn are anachronisms. We're out of pace with the world and it can be lonely to be left behind by your culture[^1]. It helps to know there are others out there like yourself. The things, the cars, the trucks, the buses, they're talismans perhaps, so we anachronists will know each other when we see each other. Those who keep things going understand them, understand where they came from, why they work the way the work, and what that means. You have too, otherwise you'll never be able to keep whatever it is working. This process is a way of communing with the past. If that sounds too hippy for you, don't worry, that communication with the past often goes like this, "what #$%@ idiot wired this together with electrical tape" or words to that effect. We know what it's like to bang our heads against a problem for weeks. We know the pain of seeing that white smoke coming out the valve cover vent. We understand the sense of victory when it starts up and purrs after hours of work. This used to be a more common experience. One there would be little reason to even talk about. Most things prior to about 1995 were made with the implicit understanding that they would at some point in the future need to be repaired. This was an understood part of the design process, even if the designer assumed the repair person would be a "professional". Go back a bit further and not only are notions of future repair part of the design process, there's no assumption about professionals. The assumption was that the owner would be doing basic maintenance and fixing things themselves. Read any car manual -- not the repair manual, but the in-the-glove-box owner's manual -- and you'll find the manufacturers' assumed owners would change the oil, repair the brakes, and perform other basic maintenance. Somewhere in the last 30 years, this culture of repair was lost. No. Lost is the wrong word. I believe it was a concerted effort to destroy not just the ability to repair things, but the culture of repair, the idea that repairing things is something you could and should do. Today we live in a world where even professional mechanics can't repair some vehicles. It's so bad that Massachusetts passed a law requiring vehicle manufacturers to allow third-party repair and the United States federal government initially suggested that car makers not comply. Even when they backed off that stance, the primary effect of the law is that car makers like Kia and Subaru decided to disabled reporting systems completely for Massachusetts drivers. The logic, if you can call it that, seems to be "if we have to give it to you, we'll just not have it, then we *can't* give it to you." This is why, in 2069, no one is ever going to see a 2024 Subaru at the gas station and say, "hey, thanks for keeping it going." The 2024 Subaru is going end up in a landfill with every other car made since around 2012[^2]. This is where the claim that we're all just nostalgic for some lost past falls apart. Most of us don't wants to go back to the past, today is pretty great. What I think many people want are tools and skills from the past. That is, we want stuff that works, stuff that's made to last, and stuff we can fix with our hands and a few simple tools. Once you get past aesthetics (the Bronco of 1970 looks better than the Bronco of 2024), past the fact that it's much easier to repair, you get to the part that matters: the Bronco of 1970 responds to individual human agency. Anyone, with the right manuals, mentors, and patience can figure out how it works, what's wrong with it, and, with a few simple tools, you can make it work again. That is empowering in a way that the 2024 Bronco will never be. That is an object that respects the toolmaking origins of humanity. That is what I think people mean when they say thanks. Thanks for doing the work, thanks for the reminder that it can be done, thanks for keeping it going. There are a multitude of reasons this is stupid, but at the same time in some ways I think it is good. I think it is the end of the line. I think people are starting to realize that yes, corporations are playing them for fools. This happens across the board too. Try upgrading your Apple laptop or replacing the cells of your LED light or rebalancing the spinner in your washer. There's no way you're keeping any of those going. They are landfill bound. You can throw up your hands and say who cares, I don't want to fix those things anyway. Sure. That's fair. Right now. But one thing you learn as you get older is that the world doesn't care what you want to do. Sometimes you get to do what you want to do, you go buy the project car, drag it home, and restore it in your shop. Sometimes though, the project car breaks down at the side of the road and you get to fix it in the rain and mud whether you want to or not. I think this true on a broader scale as well. There will be no alternative. No one knows when that's going to be, but increasingly, I think we all feel it coming. The world as we know it is going away, and we have a front-row seat to the change. The question is, what are we going to do? The past hundred years have been unlike anything in human history. Today you can buy things made in China for a $1 at your local hardware store. But the global trade that's made our world possible is falling apart. We aren't going to keep getting endless replacements doodads, and most of the things that surround us now can't be repaired. This is where I believe the anachronists can guide us into a saner future -- by going through the past. In the past things had to be repairable because replacing them would have been either too expensive or outright impossible. This is the world we will return to, but you don't have to wait for it to be forced on you. You can start now. You can get ahead of the curve. Repair is something you can learn to do right now and it has benefits *right now*, even if global trade remains a stable thing for decades to come. I happen to think we are a mere high profile act of piracy away from the death of international trade as we know it, but even if I am wrong, there's no harm in learning to repair something. There's nothing you or I can do about the fate the seas, but the next time the blender breaks we could have a crack at fixing it before we throw it away. And if you can repair it, then you might never need another, which saves money. The thing about repair is that it tends to lead you in other interesting directions. Suppose you step back from the blender for a minute and consider the actually task -- grinding things finely. That's a task that was solved long before electric blenders came along. So if the blender repair doesn't work out, hey, maybe you can learn to do without a blender by gaining skills with a chef knife or mortar and pestle. Similarly, working on the bus has made me eye the bicycles we carry around. If I can replace a head gasket, push rods, and valves surely I can figure out how to fix a derailleur[^3]. This kind of thinking will start to cascade through your life as you start fixing things. Not because fixing things is easy, but because it's hard. I don't want to replace another head gasket, maybe we should rethink the way we're traveling, could we perhaps travel by bike? Fixing things will teach you to step back and consider the actual problem. This might actually be the primary useful skill I've learn from repairing things. Which is not to say that repairing things isn't Learning skills -- whatever they may be -- is an investment in the future. Your future. Our future. If not you, then who? Skills build a future in which you're a little less dependant on the fragile, global systems and a little more capable as a human being. I think of all skills this way. I've spent the last year teaching myself to cook over open flame, especially using a dutch oven. It did it partly because open flame is the way all cooking was done until about 100 years ago. There's that connection to the past, which I like, but also, if we happen to run out of propane, or don't have the electricity to [run the waffle iron](https://luxagraf.net/essay/tools/waffle-world), it really doesn't matter. If I can start a fire I can cook most anything. Every withdrawal you can make from the fragile systems that surround us removes that dependency and empowers you. Except here's the thing, [^1]: I have heard people say this anyway. Personally I find being left behind by my culture an immense relief. One less thing to worry about. Carry on culture, I won't miss you. [^2]: I have heard of some efforts to replace the non-repairable elements of newer vehicles with salvaged parts from older vehicles, or ways to bypass system requirements that won't let a car start if the taillight is out and other ridiculous hurdles, but for the most part I believe most post-2012 vehicles will be abandoned. [^3]: No disrespect to bike mechanics. Bikes are less complex than engines, but no easier in my experience.