Andy McKelvie
My Dad’s oldest friend is a man by the name of Andy McKelvie.
When we were kids and on a road trip to visit my Nanna, we’d sometimes stop in at Andy and Marianne’s house. They had a bunch of kids just like my parents, and they lived in a house that Andy built himself. Instead of having a TV, the kids were encouraged to learn music and play instruments which my parents loved to remind us of all the time. Andy is an experienced woodworker and cabinet maker and has worked in a labouring capacity for most/all of his life as far as I know.
About a decade ago, I was working with my Dad as a rural fencing contractor. We often had men coming to help out either as contractors or sometimes the farmers coming to offer assistance. I tolerated it, but I wasn’t a fan per se.
It’s both very easy and extremely difficult to impress men in a physical labour setting in my experience. At one point, my Dad had injured his back during a time we were building a fence for some horses. Instead of our usual barbed wire, we were using long, heavy timber rails. Dad couldn’t do much more than drill and instruct on this particular day, so I did all the heavy lifting. And let me tell you, these rails were heavy. After a big morning of intense physical labour, lunch was approaching and the farmer we were working for made his way over to us. I was carrying the nail bucket back to the ute and he asked me, “Are you Daddy’s little nail carrier today are you?”
I was 24 years old.
I resisted the urge to wrestle him to the ground, cover him in timber planks and sit on him, and instead gave Dad my most unimpressed stare which he correctly translated to, “Get this idiot away from me.”
I unnecessarily and pointedly moved some heavy eight foot posts as Dad explained to the man that I was an actress who worked for him when I wasn’t filming and that I was hands down the best worker he’s had. He also casually informed him that I can drive a tractor better than most men he knows. We were a team, you get me?
Other times, I’d just pick up the drill and give it a zzt zzt and the onlookers would be flabbergasted. Like I said - both very easy and extremely difficult to impress.
So Dad tells me one day that Andy is coming to stay and will be coming to work with us. I sighed deeply. I like Andy. He’s a good guy. Friendly. Funny. I wasn’t ready to have to hate his guts. But I knew how men could be on a job site. And I prepared for the worst. I was used to having my instructions and advice ignored only for them to discover how right I was after they made their time consuming mistakes.
So it’s day one and Dad sends Andy and I to a really annoying job in the hills. My Dad is the kind of guy who is like, “So you want the fence built on the steepest hill known to man with a sheer drop on two sides, grass as tall as a house, the cows are going to be in there annoying us, we have to carry all the equipment on foot for two kilometres, and we have to dig every hole by hand since we can’t get a tractor up there? … Yeah no worries - we’ll be there next month.”
One time a farmer was adamant they wanted the fence built down the “side of their hill” and it was so steep (practically a cliff) we were using the barbed wire to abseil down to tie it off.
I repeat: abseiling down barbed wire, on a hill that could take out a goat.
Anyways where was I? Oh yeah - day one… so we’re making our way over to assess where to begin and Andy grabs me by the shoulder and says, “Now Lysette…”
Here we go, I think, trying to keep my eyes from prematurely rolling back into my head.
“…I need you to know - you’re the boss!”
Huh.
“…I will do whatever you say. You’re in charge and I’m just here to work for you.”
I squinted around our remote location trying to locate any cameras in case I was being pranked. But to my surprise, he was being completely sincere.
For the next week or so, Andy was humble and curious and listening intently to all my tricks of the trade. He asked questions and sought my advice and was overall a very jovial presence on the job. Keep in mind what I said about being very well versed in tools and physical labour.
When I taught him to tie off the wire at the end section using the aptly named under-over-under-over knot, he would observe, “Yours looks so much better than mine.”
(Mine always looked better than everyone else’s but I certainly never heard about it…)
He followed my every instruction and suggestion, and I had such a great week on a job I probably would have otherwise despised.
He brought so much joy to the job.
We have a special and vitally important tool my Dad invented which we call The Twizzler ™. Andy thought it was so funny. When we got back to Mum and Dad’s house at the end of the day, they’d sit in the back pergola by the BBQ and bar and Andy decided to christen the area, ‘The Twizzler’s Arms.’
When we finished in the hills, Andy was tasked with building a chook enclosure on a farm around the corner from Mum and Dad’s. It was beyond my construction knowledge and right up Andy’s alley, which meant the roles were reversed and he was designer in chief and boss, and I was the apprentice. I thought this would be where we’d unravel and he’d get arrogant and sassy and I’d have to hammer his fingers *accidentally.*
But he surprised me again.
He’d ask my opinion when a challenge arose.
He’d take the worst jobs and give me the enjoyable ones.
He’d marvel at my downward hammering and I’d marvel at his upward hammering. (Profession specific skills…long story…)
We had fun and chatted back and forth, and there was just no ego to upset our mojo.
Dad has always been quick to sing my praises in the world of men thinking I would be useless.
And Andy is as humble and respectful as they come.
Both extremely learned and skilled men.
Both with many years of experience.
(Perhaps that’s the trick…you see where I’m going with this?)
I say all this because my goodness do I have a large amount of irritating stories about men from even just this job in particular. Assumptions and arrogances and all manner of attitudes that were condescending and quite frankly supremely mistaken.
I back tracked and rewrote and critically edited this piece many times. I didn’t want to sound like a “man-hater.” It kept hanging over me…how do I express what I want to say without seeming like I was just bitter?
But this morning I woke up to the news of the women murdered in Bondi Junction yesterday. I woke up the to the fact that the tally this year for women being murdered in Australia is at 27 in just 3.5 short months. And I thought - stuff it (but the f word version).
This piece is not about them. The murderers. Not today. But it does give me some perspective. And helps me realise how important stories like this one are for shifting the imbalances I see all around me. For showing how things can go well. Really well.
I have found myself surrounded in life by some truly great men.
Men who maintain consistent respectful eye contact.
Men who generously compliment and encourage from a place of equivalency.
Men who listen to, respect and learn from female voices.
Men who are actively engaging in behaviours and endeavours that create space for female wisdom, stories, skill and expertise.
Some of my frustrating stories need telling.
But more importantly today, I needed to tell this one.
This example of secure manhood.
Of both knowledge and humility.
Of action and observation.
Of strength and collaboration.
Of the masculine and feminine in harmonising balance in a single person.
This picture of how things can work when everyone holds respect for the other without limiting gendered nonsense.
This story of an absolute unicorn of a 60 year old man.
My Dad’s best mate - Andy McKelvie.
x
Lysette
Postscript: Important to note that far from the information that’s circulating around many (usually gendered) spiritual retreats and social media messaging currently, about masculine being a male thing and feminine being a female thing…I subscribe to the understanding that both the masculine and feminine are energies we all hold within us.
Looooooong post to come on this but I hold much more masculine energy and characteristics, and Jarrod holds much more feminine energy and characteristics.
All this to say that when we hold too much of one energy type, we can find ourselves in a dysfunctional balance. Hence my points above about how Andy holds the two so beautifully in harmony.