"The Shop"

 

It's exactly 4(four) stop signs from my grandparents house to my Grandfather's shop( Spot Welding Supply ).

 

As a rite of passage, all of the kids and grandkids endured spending a day at "the shop". Whether sweeping and cleaning something useless, to filing and running copies on an antique manual machine, spending the day at an old house turned into welding shop with an office was punishment only surpassed by sitting on the basement stairs with the lights off and door closed. "Think about the food you just wasted on your plate", he would bark out through the closed door.

 

As he sat at the end of the table in "his seat" working the toaster oven as only he could do efficiently, passing out freshly toasted or baked items.. "It’s cheaper than heating the oven to do it this way", was his reasoning. He was really a cross between the Bill Ford and Fred Sanford. There was always epoxy oozing from something being held together.

 

He definitely did it his way. The only way according to hm. He knew how to get his dog pen cleanned out for a 6 pack of soda.

 

I wonder, if I got my desire for doing things that are not mainstream and out of the norm. I know one of my cousins got his engineering technical expertise.  There was enough of that 40+ inch waistline guy to go around.