JOHN THE GURU
John Cermak installed a pool table, gun rack and shower in his parents’ basement. He lived down there his entire adult life. In his twenties, John drove a humpy Saab. Had to be a Saab. He showed me how to do oil changes on my car (a Plymouth Valiant) and helped me build a coffee table from pine 2x4s. We grew up across the street from each other.
John especially liked motors, fishing and woodworking, but that’s not the whole picture; he went to St. Ignatius High and graduated John Carroll University as an English major.
When I got into the landlord biz (thanks, Dad), I called John for advice on boilers, blown fuses, leaks and everything else. John was my guru of the physical world.
When John was in elementary school, he mounted a lawnmower engine on a tricycle. The guy knew everything.
John died in 1992 at age 41 from complications of mental illness and alcoholism. He could put away a case of Wiedemann’s in a day. Schizophrenia ran in his family.
A repairman called me and said, “The voltage at the cap is good.”
What’s that mean? If the voltage was good, why didn’t we have power in four suites? The man said, “The inside line, outside, is yours.”
John, you there?
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My uncle Al Ansel was also a Wiedemann’s drinker and a master of the physical world, working as a tool and die maker at Rockwell in Columbus. He had a tool collection that covered a wall in his basement. I inherited his black hair, his left-handedness — and none of his mechanical apitude. I putter around with my little tool box until Yuko calls a professional; Uncle Al could fix anything that broke.
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