Fathers and Sons - Uncorrected

A few months ago, my oldest son, who is in college, reported that his electric scooter wasn’t working. He uses it to get around campus, which I thought was a great idea when he first ordered it, as it was a quick way for a commuter to get around on campus. (Another part of me isn’t sure why he needs a scooter, because there’s nothing wrong with walking, but hey.)

Anyway, I did a quick search via ChatGPT to see what might be the problem (the display/control board was flashing an “E1” error), and while some of the solutions might have been achievable by us by jiggling a wire or resealing a connector, I suspected it might have something to do with the electronics, which I wouldn’t be able to diagnose without more know how (electric scooters don’t have ODDB ports, at least not this one).

In any event, I figured, let’s give it a shot and dig around. We took off some of the fairing, inspected the wires, and even pulled out the battery pack hidden behind a long metal plate, to check and see if there was any evidence of where or damage to the battery.

I had some things I wanted to do that night for work, and then maybe do some reading and writing for myself, so at first I wasn’t all that excited about getting into this project. But moms being moms, I could sense Rhonda’s worry about him not having it in the cold, so I thought it would be worth diving into the project for a little bit, seeing if we can solve it.

We all row in the same direction, as a mentor once said to me.

What ensued was a fairly classic dad thing: showing Joey the difference between some of the screwdriver heads, such as Allen or hex keys versus Philips, the different sizes of each, and how different kinds of wrenches can get you more or less torque, depending upon your need. We even got to use my Makita drill driver to pull 16 screws from the bottom of the scooter to expose the battery, which tool comports with one of my pieces of fatherly advice: don’t buy a cheap drill.

I did everything I could to show Joey what I thought we should do, but let him go ahead and try it himself. And I got to thinking how much that’s what dads do. Dads aren’t always good at everything that moms are . But we can be great at showing you how to do things, to show you how things work, and when you can’t fix or control or directly manipulate, show you some other problem-solving tricks.

Sure, no dad is going to be good at all of those things, and plenty of moms are resourceful in this capacity. I think trying to inspire a sense of adventure and a willingness to try and explore are more important than necessarily demonstrating victory or success every time. That’s a dad’s job. And I’m glad I get to do that.

And I’m glad I got to learn that from someone else growing up. Thanks Dad!