MODERN LIVING: The Shoulder Trade

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The Never Neverland. For months they worked. Says Bushnell: "The boat was driving us nuts." Their wives got annoyed, then downright angry. Toward the end, the two were forced to spend every free hour at the yard, cutting, drilling, measuring, gluing and installing a 215-h.p. V-8 engine. They experimented with a new plastic paint, had to paint the hull three times before they found a mixture that went on smoothly without bubbles; the first four coats of varnish on the cabin peeled off like sunburned skin; there was even one heart-stopping moment when a fire broke out in the shack. By the time their Neverland finally reached the water, the two had spent $6,000 and three years on their idea. Parke was dead tired: Bushnell had an ulcer from the strain. (He still managed to work hard enough at his regular job to become a vice president.)

But the two boatbuilders were happy: they could pile their families aboard and spend happy weekends cruising up and down Puget Sound. Then, one day, the Neverland passed a lovely, wooded point jutting out into the Sound. Bushnell had a great idea: Why not build a summer cottage and a dock? Last week Bushnell was drawing plans for a one-room summer cottage and felling madrona evergreens to clear the ground. When it is finished, he plans to build a new eight-room house for his family.

Applejack to Zymurgy. Actually, the fact that millions find joy in building is nothing new. Men have puttered around since the dawn of time, constantly trying to learn new skills, gobbling up expert knowledge on everything from applejack to zymurgy. And Americans, more than any other people, have always been a nation of how-toers, of putterers, tinkerers and inventors. Philadelphia's Ben Franklin wrote dozens of pamphlets on how to do things, from The Way to Wealth to Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress. Thomas Jefferson spent hours figuring out such devices as a revolving chair, an automatic door opener, a dumbwaiter to bring wine from the cellar.

Boston's earliest merchants sold knockdown chairs, casks and tables, to be assembled at home. In the 1880s a U.S. paint firm put out tiny pots of black paint so that proper ladies could spruce up their Sunday straw hats. By the turn of the century, Sears, Roebuck catalogues already offered such do-it-yourself items as plumbing and water systems, bathroom fixtures, all sorts of floor covering, paints, handymen's tools and supplies to Americans who either liked or had to do things themselves.

"It Was Easy." Those who have never been bitten by the do-it-yourself bug wonder how sane and sensible people get that way. For example, Sid Bernstein, 35, came back to Los Angeles from serving in the Air Force in India in World War II determined to spend every free hour lounging in his backyard. He managed to do so for 2½ years. "I could look across the street and see a poor slob mowing his lawn, carrying ladders into his house and unloading a lot of junk from his car," recalls Bernstein. "I felt sorry for the guy, honestly. I wondered why he was knocking himself out on his day off."