 Well, Dr. Manning, I've done all a surgeon can for him. I mended his ankle, healed his back, straightened his arm, patched his scalp. But now he refuses to leave the hospital. He even refuses to get up out of bed. He just lies there, staring at the ceiling, muttering strange words, molly, secretes, vapor vacuums, crawl spaces, and snakes. Snakes. Why are snakes? That's why I called you, Manning. Pete Bolton needs a psychoanalyst. He even claims he was hit by a boat while standing in a concrete driveway. The CBS Radio Workshop, dedicated to man's imagination, the theater of the mind. Today a psychological examination of the man who forms the backbone of a $12 billion industry, the man in the gray flannel overalls, an account dedicated to those of you who do it yourself. As my colleague, Dr. Forster, had promised, I found Pete Bolton lying flat in bed. The ambulance driver confirmed the fact that Pete claimed his physical injuries now healed had arisen from a boat striking him. So help me, Doc, the nearest water for miles around was a fish pond in his backyard. Pete was a clean-cut looking man in his middle 30s. His smile of greeting was pleasant. But he gripped the sides of his bed tightly as I walked over to him. Mr. Bolton? That's right. I'm Dr. Manning. Dr. Forster suggested that I come and talk with you. Yes? I want to talk to you about those snakes. Snakes? The wire ones. Oh. Oh, those. You better watch out for those, Doc. Better so at House of Yours right now. The house? Well, don't you own a house? A little hideaway, a hunting cabin someplace? Well, I do have a retreat for a few of my patients. How long have you had it? Not long. I just took it over. Well, then give it back. Give it back, Doc. Because they'll come, Doctor. They'll come. The wire snakes. Someday a drain will stop up. You won't be able to get a plumber. You'll have to clean out that drain. Just simple things at first, but then you will go on from there. You will become one of them, like I was. Now do it yourself, then the roof falls in. In the medical journals, I had noted the profession's growing shock at the havoc wrought by the do-it-yourself movement on the human body, the nationwide surge of smashed thumbs, sawed off fingers, broken legs from falls off roofs and scaffoldings. I had noted the insurance company's rising alarm at fires from amateur wiring, floods from amateur plumbing, inadvertent burials from amateur excavations. As I began my talks with Pete Bolton, trying to ascertain what traumatic shock kept him pinned to his bed, I learned about the drives that send the men and women of modern America, some say 40 million of them, to paint, plaster, build, construct, pave, insulate, saw, hammer, and bore holes with an enthusiasm formally reserved for the flag and mother. When Pete joined this vast army of do-it-yourselfers, he hadn't touched a tool since he took a required course in manual training in the eighth grade. Since his marriage, he had had two promotions at the bank in which he was employed, but he and Helen were still living in their small rented living room bedroom and bathroom. Pete, have you seen that book of the month? Which month? This month, the book that came today. Oh, what's your name again? How should I know? I couldn't find the little slip of paper to send back saying we didn't want it. You know, someday we've got to settle down and organize this love nest. No, we never can find a thing anymore. Books piled on top of everything. Guest towels in the trunk down in the storage room. Every time we have a guest, I have to find the superintendent and get a key. We just had an extra shelf or two. Oh, I don't know where we'd put a shelf. We have that little alcove beside the fireplace. Well, if you can pick up a bookcase that'll fit in there. Pete, that would look horrible. What would? A bookcase stuck in that alcove. Well, it should be shelves built in. Built in, huh? Hmm. Okay. Ask the superintendent what they'd cost. I already have. $78. What? Yeah, I knew you'd say that. Well, we're not asking him to build a whole new apartment house. Just a couple of shelves. He says carpenters have gone up. Well, let him stay up. I'll do it myself. In most areas of the United States today, the cost of materials for a home, an extra bathroom, or a new electric outlet is one quarter to one-third the total cost. The rest goes for labor. Today the workmen, looking toward social security, guaranteed annual wage and health benefits, prefers year-round work with the mass housing contractor, the airplane factory, the glamorous fields of radio, television, and electronics. So the handyman, a vanishing American in most communities, knows where he can do better and charges accordingly. But while the high cost of labor may be a factor for the enormous rise of do-it-yourself since World War II, Pete Bolton was to reveal even deeper psychological reasons. Yes, sir? What can we do for you? Oh, I want some boards for a shelf. What kind of wood? I got some mahogany. My wife thinks mahogany would look nice. Hmm. How much mahogany do you want? Oh, four or five pieces. Not this wide, but so long. Also I'll hammer in some nails. Two, four, six, eight, or ten penny, clout, wire, galvanized, steel cut. What's that? Esperanto? Ways of ordering nails. Oh, look. If you're going to make it tough for me, I'll... Okay, I'm sorry. Ever put up a shelf before? What do you think? Oh, we get some like you every day. Honestly? Simple shelf builders as well as experts who want to panel the rumpus room. Oh, it's just a small apartment. We have to rumpus where we can. Take a look over here. Looks like a supermarket, doesn't it? Do-it-yourself kits for everything. Hi-fi, radiator covers, storage walls. Wow. Out back in our lot, we've got several big kits for pre-fabricated houses. Oh, yes, but don't you have any plain old boards? I won't sell you a board or even a nail until you take this rule. Go home and measure for the wood you need, then come back and I'll sell you some good white pine, not mahogany. Oh, but my wife... Bring your wife and I won't sell her mahogany. It's too expensive. Now, you don't need it for shelves. I'll sell you just what you need and only what you need. Who knows? Someday, you may want to buy one of our pre-fab, split-level, ranch-type, 12-room houses complete with sod for three acres of lawn. Oh, it's coming. It's coming. Well, you've done wonders. One shelf up already and you've only been working three hours. Well, these dog-gun nails won't go into the wall. Maybe you should have bought a sharper kind of nail. Oh, sure. I've gone all over the whole store and tested each nail on my finger. Well, it's going to look beautiful. What are those chunks on the floor? Oh, it's plaster. Plaster? Well, every time I hit a nail, a chunk falls off. Well, landlord will be wild. I'll have to get a plaster in, I guess. Well, hang it all. Don't stare. You wanted these shelves? I wanted them. You offered to build them. Shh. Shh. Something at the door. Well, naturally, all this pounding after midnight. Hi. My name's Kenley. Live next door. Heard you hammering. I am sorry, Mr. Kenley. Did we wake you? Wake me? No. My wife and I were working in the apartment. Finally, I said, Erna, somebody's doing it yourself. This, I got to find out about. Oh, I was just putting up some shelves. Say, I put some in our apartment in the same place. Two years ago. Oh, I'd like to tell Erna, my wife, if she's still on top of the desk. If she's where? On top of the desk. We're painting the ceiling of the apartment tonight. Holy smoke. You've made hash of that plaster. What kind of nails are you using? All these. Aren't they the right kind, Mr. Kenley? You should have told them at this store you were going into plaster. I'll go get some of the right kind and Erna. By the time you fix drinks for everybody, I'll be back. You don't need to trouble? Trouble? We're friends now. All it do what yourself has to do is knock once with a hammer and he'll get friends from 60 miles away. Okay, Pete. This side and that's it. There she goes. Okay, boy. Knock her into place while I call the little woman and we'll all have a drink. Helen. Hey, Helen. Come and look what we've got. You're shouting like that? Take a look, Helen. How do you like it, honey? Finish them. You made my shelves. Pete made them with his own little hands. Oh, well, Shucks, who told me about the nails? Brought his power saws like it. They are beautiful. Really professional. They're so beautiful and you've worked so hard. Well, hey now, honey, don't cry. It was nothing, really. Yes, it was. It was working all day at the bank and staying up half the night to build my shelves. Well, I got a kick out of this, honey, honest. I felt just like old Donald Boone and Nate Blinken and the other pioneers building log cabins. What's the matter? What are you stirring up now? Nothing, nothing, dear. Yes, you are. You're stirring up the shelves. Isn't she, Alex? Huh? Oh, I was just pouring drinks for the three of us for a toast. I think you and I should toast, Pete, Alex. Oh, not till you tell me what you're stirring up about those shelves. What's wrong with them, Helen? Nothing, except... Except what? Well, I was thinking we'll have to paint them. Oh, sure, we'll have to paint them. But don't you see, dear, if we paint the shelves, it'll make the rest of the room positively dinged. Hey, haven't you kids painted with rollers? It's a cinch. Earn an eye, I'll show you. Well, Rembrandt, here I come. Rome, she ain't what she used to be. She ain't what she used to be. She ain't what she used to be. The old gray Rome, she ain't what she used to be. Now she's painted green. Okay, everybody, let's get her up to the paint claws, wash the brushes, move the furniture back, and then we'll have champagne in our new living room. Oh, boy, have we had fun these last two weeks. When are you going to paint the rest of your apartment, Helen? Oh, I don't know, and I'm sort of tired these days. We thought maybe we'd wait. Say, you know what you want to get? An electric paint sprayer. An electric paint sprayer? Terrific! Goes... You do your wall sealings furniture in half the time. Oh, dear, somebody heard his singing. I'll see who it is. Well, good evening, Mr. Peabody. I beg to differ, Mr. Bolton. It's morning, and no time to be singing in my apartment house. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Peabody. I'm terribly sorry. Now, look... What's happened to this room? Well, that's what we were singing about. We just finished painting it. I presume you're responsible for this, Mr. Kenway. Well, now, Mr. Peabody, I just... Haven't I had enough trouble with you in your apartment without your invading a second apartment of my building? I suppose he gave you permission to paint your walls, Mr. Bolton. Well, no, we just... Do I smell rubber-based paint? I do. You know what this means. Uh-oh. Well, you may. Uh-oh, Mr. Kenway. I don't suppose you told these people rubber-based paint on the walls of this apartment is permissible only if the tenant guarantees to have it scraped off and two coats of oil paint put on when they move. Look, they had the rubber base already bought before I... And you've added bookshelves, I say. Nailed or screwed in, Mr. Bolton? Why, why, why, why, why, nailed. Nailed. You know what that means in any apartment building? The shelves belong to the landlord. Section 182, shelves, cabinets, valances, and other elements of decoration become the property of the landlord unless fastened by the use of screws. All right. We'll get our use out of them the next couple of years. We'll take care of the painting. Peabody, we can. Why not, honey? We'll restore all the extra paint and the ladders and the brushes and the claws. I'll write where we're storing the tools. Go into the bedroom. Tell I build that storage cabinet. There isn't going to be any room for a storage cabinet. I'm going to need a crib. A crib? Oh, darling. You mean it? Well, the heck with a crib? Now we can build a house. By recalling these first adventures in Do-It-Yourself, Pete had gained an insight into the edible drive that led him to emulate the pioneer forefathers. Modern man no longer rests a harvest from the earth. He puts his hand in the food freezer or opens a can. He no longer levels the forest to build a cabin and gets logs for the fire. He rents an apartment and pounds on the pipes for more heat. Yet, deep in his subconscious, he knows he is the natural child of the pioneer. Therefore, he turns to this new field of Do-It-Yourself, striving to prove he is as good a man as his forefathers were. Pete, tell me about building the house. Well, it's a funny thing, Dr. Manning. We didn't build one. We bought one. A nice one outside of town. Room for young Susan to have her nursery. Big yard. Oh, really nice. If a little old fashion. You gave up Do-It-Yourself? Almost completely. For a couple of years. And did you give up the kennelies, too? Well, they gave us up, you might say. I can't blame them. See, they bought a lot across from us and built a house. Alex was pretty sore when I wouldn't put on a miner's lamp and help him with a plumbing and wiring after dark. Erna said, Helen, let her down the plastering. We didn't speak to each other for a year. Then one night when I came home from work, Helen? Helen, what are you doing? Squeaking that next to the last step any longer. Well, it's squeaked ever since we moved in. Wait, Susan up. No, Susan's nursery is way down the hall. Helen, you're not looking at me. What's up? Well, honey, don't be angry. I asked the kennelies over for a drink tonight. Oh, you did. Please. It's the way Erna looks at Susan every time I take her out in the stroller. I know she wants to see her and hold her. Finally today, well, we were such good friends. Oh, yeah, I know. I can feel Alex's eyes on me, too. From his roof, from his new terrace, his new sun porch, bedroom window, the chimney, the cellar window, and wherever he's working. It was tough when he was just building that house. Now they've started remodeling. I just couldn't let them up to Susan's nursery with that stair shrieking. Oh, of course you couldn't. Here, give me that hammer. Well, it's a good house. You've got Pete a good house. Of course, if you wanted to put in an hour or two and shore up your front porch... How about another drink, Alex? Oh, well, I don't know. Erna and I have to go back and pour some concrete tonight. Alex is putting a new wing on the house. We have to extend the basement. Haven't you seen our concrete mixer? It's a cinch! Hook it up to the power, throw in the sand and gravel. Why don't you two kids come on over and see it work? No, we can't leave little Susan. Oh, that's right. They're family folks now, Alex. Why don't you go over with them? Pete, I'll stay with Susan. Yeah, how about that, Pete? Well, no, I think I ought to stay here. Why not? Pete, Helen can come over tomorrow while you stay with the baby. Look, I've got an even better idea. Why don't you two come over for early supper tomorrow and bring the baby? Well, yes. Now, you can't say no to that. And then we can show you the whole house concrete mixer and all. Yeah, I know. No, why? Well, this darn stair still creaks. Well, not half as loud as these before you fixed a chest today. You know, honey, we went from cellar to attic in Alex's house and not one stair creaked. And the windows opened without breaking your back. And their cellar's dry. That beautiful kitchen of Ernest. Oh, yeah. Honey, you wouldn't think of doing all that electric wiring yourself. You wouldn't think of doing all that electric wiring yourself. Well, darn it. I'd like to be able to use the toaster without dimming every light on the first floor. Could we have a light over the sink? Well, sure. Well, I think so anyway. Come on, let's look. Hey, you got it, please. Push that BX a little harder, son. I've got to have enough wire to reach the outlet by the sink. Come on. Ella, come and watch it. You've got your ladder right against the cord to my drill. You just got to put down that saw and come upstairs for a minute. Ernest got Susan on top of the step ladder painting the nursery ceiling. So it went, Dr. Manning. So it went. Then, Dr. Manning, 18 months later, the house was painted inside and out. Helen had her modern kitchen. We had a new bathroom. I'd insulated the house. Shored up front porch. Would you believe it, Dr., beyond a few cuts and scrapes and nicks? Well, Helen and I had never been happier in our lives. There was a lot to be said for do it yourself. And I suppose we'd still be at it. But, well, something snapped when I got sidetracked under that boat. It was a small eight-foot pram pre-cut, complete down to the last screw. A child of ten can build this in eight to ten hours, the advertisement said. How's it going, son? Okay, but I'd like to meet the guy who wrote that ad. Eight to ten hours. There are 737 screws in this thing. Besides the marine glue. Almost done. Yeah, just these last couple of screws. That's all. Man, it looks like the Queen Mary. Oh, she'll float all right. You know what? This works. Maybe you and I could get a kit for a 35-foot power cruiser. Sure. Build it in our basement. She finished? She's finished. Except for painting. Boy, that first night I met you, I'd never have thought you could do a job like this. Oh, me neither. You ever want to leave the bank, you could make a fortune doing jobs like this. Oh, I'll come off of it. What do you mean it, Pete? This boat is real. Pete, watch the boat, she's let go! Pete, where are you? Pete! Some six weeks later, after he had been taken to the hospital and his various physical injuries healed, I had met Pete Bolton for the first time. Now, after our long talks together, we had at last uncovered the basic underlying drive of the 40 million people who do it yourself to the tune of $12 billion a year. Their basic creative urge. Modern man's basic creative urge is taking the worst beating in history. This is the age of specialization, of mechanization, of automation. The worker on the assembly line and the corporation president are in the same sinking boat. They can never point to something and say, I and I alone have created this. Well, doctor, a man and woman together can create a baby. That's it. When was it you and Helen stopped painting and hammering and sawing? Well, when Susan was born, I asked, see what you mean. The creative drive is so strong in man that even though he fathers a baker's dozen, even though he is a creative artist, he still likes to do it yourself. It is born within him as surely as the lungs, the heart and the brain, until suddenly he is in need of a shelf or caught by the gleam of a power tool that resembles the fire engine of youth. Then he is lost. Or, as I think now, he has won. Calling, Dr. Jenkins. Pete was just about ready to leave that hospital bed, but my colleague, Dr. Forster, terminated the case more abruptly than I might have wished. Good morning, Pete. Well, Dr. Forster, I haven't seen you in weeks. Yes, we'll talk about that some other time, Pete. Right now we're in a terrible jam. Haven't got a bed available in the entire hospital and there's a patient outside. Auto accident? No, do it yourself or like you. Up in his roof, trying to nail a shingle to stop a leak. Oh, gosh, I'll get right up. Fell off it, huh? No, it fell in. The roof fell in with him. All right, nurse. Yes, doctor. Bring the man in right this way. Right over here. We got it, Dr. Manning. You have been listening to the CBS Radio Workshop and the psychological account of the Do-It-Yourself movement, written by Charles Esmond Rowe with music composed by Ben Ludlow and conducted by Alfredo Antonini, produced and directed in New York by Paul Roberts. Barry Kroger was heard as Dr. Manning, Joe Helgeson as Pete, Elspeth Eric as Helen and Jackson Beck as Kennelly. Others in the cast included Ralph Bell, Leon Janney, Elaine Rost and Joe Julian. This is Bob Pfeiffer inviting you to listen again next Sunday afternoon to the CBS Radio Workshop. America listens most to the CBS Radio Network.