Yes, it’s true, there really is a “Handyman Song #12.” There were at least 11 earlier versions, so I decided this one would be the last. How did it come about? It’s a long story, a very long story. As a self-employed Handyman for the past 16 years, I chose to advertise in a number of ways. As a self-publishing poet for the past 48 years, rhymes came easy to me. As a former Graphics Designer and manager and supervisor and illustrator and graduate engineer, making stuff in the corporate world for 52 years and before that was always a piece of cake. My parents were both very creative as are my three younger brothers and I had three uncles who were Seabees in World War II (carpenter, welder, and machinist). Creative stuff is in my DNA. Dad was a double-armed amputee from World War II so I grew up and was taught how to use my hands by a man who had none.
I grew up in Walnut Creek, graduated from Las Lomas High School in 1960, attended Diablo Valley College and received an AA degree in General Education in1963 and transferred to UC Berkeley that same year as a junior in Mechanical Engineering Design. By 1966 I had both my BS and Masters Degrees in Mechanical Engineering Design. Somewhere in the 1980s I acquired a Certificate in Graphic Design from UC Extension classes in both San Francisco and Berkeley. I’ve been a Macintosh computer owner since 1994. Prior to that my Graphics group at Bechtel SF were wizards on Macs in Marketing Communications until Bechtel chose to close their SF Regional office at 50 Beale Street, one block off Market. The photos for the ad I either shot myself or pulled from the Internet. A good friend of mine found the lady with the messed up lipstick on the Internet, who’d imagine such a shot existed? Enjoy!

(Graphic by Peter Bray)

Peter Bray has lived, worked, and written in Benicia since 1982 and has written this column since 2008.

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