I was hip before the iPhone

With an iPhone 4 now in my hands and watching many others exude the same glow, I now see that I was a man ahead of my time.

I’m not the most technologically adept guy. But I get by. I find the things I’m good at and stick with them.

My home repair skills follow a similar path: I get by. It ain’t pretty. Like “Millionaire,” I sometimes need to phone a friend. But new lights go in, walls go up and bushes get added.

How these two come together is an event many years ago — in an unfathomable world before smartphones, Twitter and YouTube. Some still thought the Internet was that mesh lining in your swimsuits.

In that era, I was a first-time homeowner in Port Clinton, Ohio. I was tasked with a Saturday chore of changing an outdoor hose spigot.

As that day would prove several times over, this was not any ordinary hose spigot.

First off, there was no interior shutoff valve for the spigot. When it broke at the handle, water gushed like the fountain feature my wife had always wanted. The only option for shutting it off was to turn off the home’s water main.

That sounded fine to me until my dad told me over the phone what “main” means in plumbing vernacular. Then I had a crisis. No toilet, sink or wash with the main off; a water feature with the main on.

So this was a home chore of utmost priority, unlike the other 98 percent I put off for another Saturday.

My home repair routine back then was one simple word — Ace.

I like Home Depot and Lowe’s for quantity. I like mom-and-pop places like Crogan’s in Poland for care.

But Ace Hardware I like because they are staffed with six guys like my dad — to the point, gruff, old days corner-cutting, storytellers and an endless supply of sarcasm once they know you and your (lack of) home skills.

I went to them with my spigot issue. After my explainer, an Ace guy headed down an aisle. They never, by the way, say “follow me.” You just have to know to follow, or look dumb standing by yourself.

Their first solution to my first explainer did not work. That was 90 minutes lost.

I made a second visit that day, returning parts from my first purchase.

I got a second explainer and a second set of parts. That, too, did not work, and another 90 minutes was lost.

As it was now close to closing time, this third trip would be my last chance that day to succeed. Failure meant another night of water use by water-main management.

I’m not handy. But I’m kind of street smart. I reasoned that the problem was me and how I was describing my problem.

So I did the most logical thing I could think of — with failure, fatherly sarcasm, waterless living and a store closing all piling on me.

Walking into Ace at closing time that day was like walking into a dive bar in a small town. There are only six people in the joint, and they are all huddled tighter than matchsticks, they all know each other, and none of them know you.

The Ace guys were like this. That it was my third visit had them laughing. What I had in my hand had them rolling.

I videotaped my hose. I showed the connection inside my house and the spigot outside my house.

This was when video cameras had not yet developed the nice little flip screen for viewing and reviewing. The only way to look was through the tiny eyepiece.

Amid teary-eyed laughter, the Ace guys all looked into the eyepiece to gander at my hose issue. It wasn’t the norm; it was unconventional; but it was successful.

Nowadays, with an iPhone, folks are constantly whipping it out to show off this and videotape that.

Look what I cooked last night. Look at my new tie. Here’s my kid’s first-grade recital.

On Friday, we celebrated a co-worker’s 60th birthday, and out came an iPhone.

I walked Mill Creek Park recently. As we walked, I filmed and videotaped — and posted right to Facebook for realtime scrapbooking with my iPhone.

Now that it’s the rage, I’m glad to have been a pioneer of sorts — despite the immense humiliation that became a family tale for years, and still is.

Those Ace guys, after seeing my video, had two conclusions for me:

1) My spigot was installed in my house by a guy as untalented as me.

2) Call a plumber.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes e-mails about stories and our newspaper. E-mail him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on vindy.com.