I don’t like to wear socks.

I wear them but I don’t like it.

I consider socks to be a fire hazard.

I took a welding class at a college that once thrived in Waseca.

It wasn’t my idea. It was my employer’s idea. He felt that the duct tape I used wasn’t as strong as a weld. He was annoyingly conscientious. Welding started during the Bronze Age, and it survives into the Duct Tape Age. I went to college during the day and worked nights. The welding class gave me something to fill those hours that I had been wasting on sleep.

My father had taught me how to weld with a derelict welder he had rescued from a junkyard. It was a serious stapler that performed basic farm welding with little attention paid to aesthetics.

On the farm, I welded broken wagon tongues and tractor hitches. I gave up welding once I quit breaking wagon tongues and tractor hitches.

I would have been happy not knowing anything more about welding. Welding isn’t even an Olympic event. It could be in the Winter Olympics. Replacing the brooms with welders would make curling a little more exciting.

Welding is a fine endeavor, but there is no TV show named Welding with the Stars. I have never heard of a movie called “My Big Fat Greek Welding.” There is no musical piece titled “The Welding March.”

The instructor was an artist. He left a bead that was slightly beyond perfect. He told us that the ideal weld was a Holy Grail that we should strive to find. He was telling this to a group of which not one could be trusted with using a crayon safely.

Welding is the fusing of two metals together with a hot torch. I learned various kinds of welding and I think they might have had different names. I dealt with words like “oxyacetylene” without having to spell them.

The instructor was wise and patient. He was much too good for the likes of his students. The saddest thing about the welding class was that I was its star pupil. Yeah, that scared me, too.

The other members were there because they were a part of various rehabilitation programs, doing community service, in witness protection programs, or fundamentally opposed to gainful employment.

It was a remedial welding class.

The fellow who plied his limited skills in the booth next to mine downed a little Kessler’s Whiskey during the breaks he took in his parked car. I know this because he asked if I would buy him a bottle. He’d had a disagreement at the nearest emporium of adult beverages and had been blacklisted. I passed on the chance even though he claimed it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

His manual dexterity deteriorated after a whiskey break. The sparks flew in his presence. He learned how to weld everything to the bench. He might have been better suited for training that consisted entirely of leaning against things. His welding technique was similar to the bubonic plague.

“Something is cooking,” he said.

“It sure smells good,” I responded.

It did smell good until I realized what was cooking. It was me.

One of my socks was on fire.

We had welding goggles, welding helmets, welding gloves, but no welding socks.

I may have spoken harshly to my welding compadre. I might have uttered welding vows.

I didn’t want to crush his spirit but he had made me as mad as a bumblebee in a jelly jar. I calmed down by considering that it might have been a test of faith—not unlike walking barefoot across hot coals.

“You look deep in thought,” he said as he fanned the flames on my blazing sock.

“I’m a little worried,” I admitted.

“Don’t worry, you’ll live through this.”

“I know,” I said. “That’s what worries me.”

I lost a sock in each class to the would-be welder. Same smell, different day. It was enough to make a grizzly bear wet itself in fear. My goal in the class was to emerge with enough left of my body for a proper burial.

“Why don’t you watch what you’re doing and stop setting my socks on fire?” I snapped.

“That’s a great idea, but it would never work,” he replied.

At the completion of the class, I signed a form promising to use my new powers for good and never for evil. I received a certificate suitable for framing. It was charred on the edges. In addition, I had my welding book photos. I’m glad that I spent the extra money for a professional photographer.

One of my socks still smolders when there is a south wind.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s column appears every Wednesday.