Building C-3PO… Yeah Right!

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Thursday 07 November, 2013 by Uncle Spike

Aunty Spike dropped me and the nipper a few km down the road a couple of mornings ago at 07:30 to wait for the school bus. My old wagon, a 1988 Renault with 290,000km on the clock was feeling a tad weary, and has spent the past 2 days in the workshop having various parts replaced to help it actually serve it’s life’s purpose; that of getting Cousin Spike Jnr to/from the bus stop each day for his 25km journey (we live in a small farming village off the beaten track).

We were 25 minutes early as Aunty Spike had to shoot off to get to work, early lectures and all that (she works some 65km away). Anyway, with time to kill, we did the usual. We played ‘pooh sticks’ in the farming irrigation channels; we played ‘shadow exercises’ in the early morning sun (no traffic here, just the same 4 cars and 3 motorbikes we see every morning), and we talked, boy to man, man to boy.

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“Daddy, you know you do that thing with metal?”

“What’s that son?”

“Stick metal together and wear your Darth Vader mask”

“Oh, you mean my welding?”

“Yes daddy. Well, at the weekend, can we go to the sanayii and get some metal?” (sanayii is Turkish for a light industrial area, such as car mechanics)

“Sure, what for?”

“So we can build C-3PO”

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It’s all so simple in a kid’s world!  I struggle with welding at the best of times, but whilst it’s good enough for a farm gate, or the roof of a barn/garage/depot and balcony railing repairs, I kinda think building C-3PO is just a little beyond my capabilities.

Bless him – I love this age of simplistic childhood innocence.

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