"Too_Many_Tools" wrote in message
oups.com...
In an accompanying aritcle to the PM's list of 25 skills every man
should know!
a discussion of whether Americans are losing their DIY skills.

snip

"And just look at the Popular Mechanics Boy Mechanic books to see the
kinds of skills that boys and teenagers were once routinely expected
to possess. These books (which PM published in the early 20th century
and recently reissued) assumed that young readers would be prepared to
construct a fully rigged ice boat, a toy steam engine, or-I'm not
kidding-a homebuilt "Bearcat" roadster powered by a motorcycle
engine.

It's hard to imagine too many teenagers tackling projects of that
magnitude these days."

It's also hard to imagine 99% of the population actually carrying out the
majority of projects in PM at any time in contemporary history, so I would
take those books with a grain of salt. I still remember the 1960's PM
project to make a flying car out of a Corvair in your backyard.