Mac's Paint and Radiator Shop
I was sitting in the living room of our house on 4th Avenue North in Jax Beach, reading comic books, when someone knocked on the door. It was the summer of 1961, the front door and the jalousie windows were open. We didn't have air conditioning. It was a lady in the neighborhood whose yard I had mowed. Mowing yards was one of the few jobs available for young people. I mean, there were only three grocery stores in the entire beaches area, four if you counted Casey's market in Atlantic Beach. I forget her name, but her husband's name was Mac, and he was an auto painter, among other things. "Do you want a job?" she asked. I was a little startled at her directness, but recovered quickly and said yes. Mac's helper, Bobby Bell*, who I knew from Fletcher High, had quit. Bobby ran with the black leather jacket hoodlum crowd, but never bothered me. He was a year or two older than me and dropped out the next year. He also had a motorcycle, which put him right up there with Marlon Brando in my eyes. I remember being nervous when he came to the shop to get his last pay. He was cool and just said hi. The job was prepping cars for painting, and rodding out radiators (a lost art for sure), and paid fifty cents an hour for a forty hour week - $20 a week. That doesn't sound like a lot, but the minimum wage was only @ a dollar an hour then and it was steady work.George and I were getting a $5 weekly allowance apiece, and mowing paid $3 a yard.
I'm pretty sure I started the next day, or the following Monday. I had to ask permission from Mother and Dad, I was 14. They asked a few questions and gave me their blessing. I think they thought I was a little young for a real job, but they were happy and proud for me too. It was honest work. They always had a strong work ethic.
Mac and his wife would pick me up in the morning and we would drive to Mac's workplace, which was in the open under the Atlantic Boulevard bridge on the northeast side, I think. He rented the space from Jimmy Lee Johnston, my good friend Rusty Johnston's uncle. Jimmy Lee originally owned 125 acres around the bridge including a fish camp and boat rental business. One of the governments took a lot of it from him via eminent domain. Mac kept his tools in a shed and there were some radiator cleaning vats there. Mac taught me how to clean out radiators and sand and tape off cars. While I was working, Mac and his wife would sit in lawn chairs and drink. I think that's why Bobby quit, he got tired of doing all the work. I didn't really care, I was happy to have a job. Actually I think Bobby got a job setting pins at the bowling alley (another lost art; pinsetting could be dangerous as sometimes bowlers would let their balls fly when the pinsetters were still in the line of fire. I have seen pinsetters come after careless or prankster bowlers).
I worked for Mac all summer. I forget if the reason I left was school started or Mac ran out of money and work. He taught me how to sand and tape off cars, which has come in very handy, as I have mostly had older vehicles, several of which I have spray painted myself. I never again had the occasion to disassemble and rod out radiators.
*
David I read the chapter about Mac’s body shop and a name I had not heard of or thought of for years….Bobby Bell. One summer I met him when he was working down at the old bus station on 1st Street at end of boardwalk. He was about 15 and I was 14 (I think), anyway I fell in love. He was different and he had a moped. He actually worked in the parking lot, they had a little booth and he collected the parking money. At night when he would get off, around 10:00 he would circle around the block of where I lived (you could not miss the sound of a moped) and I would sneak out the window of my bedroom after pretending to be asleep and off into the night we went riding the moped, until we stopped in a dark spot to do a little making out. It was so nice riding that moped, this was before air conditioning in all the houses and the wind felt wonderful. My, my have not thought of that in a long time, what a sweet memory. I know he lived in Mayport, but lost track of him when school started and other things became important.
Lesley Stonecypher Waldrep- 2/2010
1/26/2010
