Made tough

My stubbornness seldom shows through more than when you try to get me to visit the doctor or take medication when I’m sick. I hate having to make the trip to the store, the price-gouging, and actually having to remember to take the medication. However, this past week, I went rushing to the store in search of a cure. I contracted the notorious stomach virus that’s been plaguing much of the world. I felt like a weakling as I lay around whining and moaning to anyone who would listen (when I wasn’t in self-inflicted solitary confinement). I also had plenty of time to dwell on the stories about the toughness of those with ailments and injuries in the days gone by when quick trips to the pharmacy weren’t an option or necessarily wanted. These made me realize I was lucky to be able to recuperate for days in bed and run to the store to get medicine. Some stories also made my stomach lurch—at least I think that was the result of reading the stories:

My neighbor, Mr. Zoch, was one tough man. Once, he was using his combine and got it choked up. He got off the tractor and walked around the back to see which belt was slipping. After he found which belt was slipping, he grabbed hold of it and pulled on it to help it roll around its pulley. The pulley was stuck tight causing it to slip. He kept on pulling and it finally turned loose. The pulley and the belt started together, only the belt forced his fingers on his left hand in the groove of that pulley and caused them to break. But like I say, Mr. Zoch was tough. He never cried or hollered loud; he just came up to the shop and held up his broken fingers for us to see.

Another time, Mr. Zoch was gonna show his grandson how to work the Farmall tractor with a sickle mower attached to mow the weeds growing in the pasture. Mr. Zoch was standing on the back of the tractor drawbar while his grandson Donald Haygood was driving. They hit some rough terrain and Mr. Zoch got too close to the power take-off drive shaft. It grabbed his loose overalls by the pants leg, ripped his britches, and almost tore his hide off. Mr. Zoch came to the shop and showed it to us after he wrapped it up with some old dish clothes. His pain reliever: a sick pack of Pearl beer. His daughter rushed him to Dr. Gaddy. Dr. Gaddy said, “We’re gonna have to bandage you up and keep you here overnight to check you.” Mr. Zoch said, “I’m not staying. I’m going home where I got my Pearl beer. That’s all that I need. I don’t need any of your fancy medicine.” Mr. Zoch came home, and he drank his Pearl beer. He recuperated.

Mr. Zoch demonstrated his toughness and remarkable ability to recuperate once again when he went to pick up the meat from a meat locker plant in Granger. He was going to the meat locker to pick up the fresh tongue, heart, and liver of his slaughtered animal. Kris Doerfler had taken a calf to the Granger meat locker plant to be butchered because Mr. Zoch didn’t have a trailer. On the way to pick up the meat, right past Scott’s grainery, Mr. Zoch ran off the road at a curb and hit a tree head on. Since he wasn’t driving real fast, the damage wasn’t all that bad, but he couldn’t move the car. He grabbed his bucket and dishtowels. Kris waited at the locker plant, knowing that Mr. Zoch was coming. Since he didn’t show, Kris decided to backtrack and sure enough, here’s Mr. Zoch walking along the side of the road toward Granger, bucket in hand. Kris stopped and asked him where he was going in a comical way. Mr. Zoch sarcastically replied, “That’s none of yer business.”

Well, they went back to Granger and got the heart, liver, and tongue. Kris brought them back to his home. Mr. Zoch said he had to have a beer because he was hurtin’. Lots of time, Mr. Zoch bought Pearl beer in quarts, and I think this was a quart job. It was that evening when Mr. Zoch’s son-in-law and daughter, Lewis and Gladys, came to visit. His daughter told him, “Papa, we need to take you to the doctor if you’re hurtin’ that bad in your side from the wreck. We went to get the car and it looks pretty bad. Besides, you’re gonna have to report the accident to the Highway Patrol.” Mr. Zoch said, “They don’t need to know everything.” But his daughter said, “This is the law and Papa, you better not drink anymore beer or else they gonna smell it on you.” Papa said, “I’ll drink enough to where I don’t hurt.” They took him to Dr. Gaddy again, and Dr. Gaddy wrapped him up and said, “You broke some ribs.” Mr. Zoch said, “I figured I did, and I figured I’m gonna suffer but Pearl will get me through.” That was my neighbor, Mr. Zoch.

Looking after a Legacy

“Well lookey yonder,” I hear as I walk through the shop’s double doors. I see his blue eyes shining through his thick metal-rimmed glasses above his big grin. I’m immediately introduced to anyone sitting nearby. “She’s one of the one’s who lived in New York. She’s the one who’s writing my book.” They smile and say, “Oh yes, I remember hearing about you.” I stock the Cokes and walk behind the counter to help a few people checkout and listen to my Grandpa tell stories and jokes.

Walking in the shop always makes me feel like I’m taking a trip through time. I look at the pictures on the wall of my great-Grandpa’s diploma from Sweeney Automotive School and the shop back in the 1940s. That diploma and land bought from Mr. Zoch helped my great-Grandpa overcome the title of “shade tree mechanic” and build the shop we know and love:  

When my dad decided to go in business for himself, he wanted some land close to Walburg instead of where he had been working under shade trees on the homeplace. The reason I say shade trees is there is an expression used, “Oh, he’s just a shade tree mechanic.” Not having a roof over his head or a shop to work in, my dad would be talked about as a shade tree mechanic. He would be working under a shade tree so he wouldn’t be out in the hot sun, naturally. A shade tree would also have a big enough limb to hold the chain-hoist; in the old days, you had a chain-hoist attached to the rear or front bumper of the vehicle to raise it. A shade tree mechanic was usually all by himself with little or no experience.

Yep, my dad was a shade tree mechanic who went to Sweeney Automotive and Electrical School in Kansas City, and then decided he wanted to build his own place. So he came to Mr. Zoch to buy a half an acre of land to build a shop. It was agreed Mr. Zoch would sell a half an acre to my dad, close to the corner of FM 972. At that time, the road coming down from Walburg was a straightaway and the road coming from St. Peter’s was a straightaway, so they formed a sharp t-intersection instead of the curve there today. Dad didn’t buy the exact bottom end of the t, he bought a little up from the t-intersection.

My great-Grandpa's diploma

Eighty-six years have come and gone since my great-Grandpa started Mickan Motor Company. Three generations of Mickan men have worked under the cars, trucks and tractors. Last summer, the fourth generation, Danny’s daughter, Maddie, worked at the counter where my grandma still works and I’ll work now. As of this week, I’m a full-time employee at Mickan Motor Company. Family-owned small businesses are becoming harder and harder to find. I think about what will happen to the shop but, as I mentioned in my earlier blog post “Plans”, the future is entirely unpredictable. My grandpa talks longingly about his Uncle Alfred’s old gas station:

If you drive by Norththrop today, there is no visible evidence of Uncle Alfred’s house, his shop, or his gas station. The children sold the property and now it is bare. There is nothing that would lead you to believe that there ever was anything there. Because he was a mechanic, his place was an important place in his damn time. Now it’s gone.

Some businesses fade but others endure and there’s no way of telling what will happen. For now, we do our best; I’m proud to help Danny, Paul, Grandpa and Grandma keep the lights on at Mickan Motor Company. Grandpa can be proud his place is still thriving and his son and son-in-law spawned two other family businesses. My cousin Brecklyn works for Tech Management, a family business run by her parents in Midland, Texas, while my cousin Branden works for his father, Tim, at Mickan Tool & Supply in Houston, Texas. We’re all close in age—27 this year—helping to ensure that family businesses aren’t all a legacy lost.

Mickan Motor Company, 2012