The state highway that approaches Dave George’s repair shop rises just enough to afford a glimpse of the George farm before it slowly drops, like a polite elevator, to the entrance of the long drive leading to the shop. George’s Repair is one of Thornville’s oldest ongoing businesses but you’d never know it from the signage. There is none. I’m met only by a crooked mailbox whose faded numbers fail to acknowledge I’m about to enter a world that has remained constant for nearly a hundred years.
Dave’s granddad and dad before him were the go-to-guys for folks in the Thornville area when steel fatigued, drive belts broke and haying equipment proved stubborn beyond use. Thornville fosters intelligent people who refuse to be blackmailed by planned obsolesce, preferring to repair broken equipment rather than replace it. They are mostly farmers—some by choice, and some by natural selection who inherited their profession like Adams assigned to tend and till the garden.
Castoff pieces of farm equipment crouch in the weeds like dinosaur skeletons. Some have rolled over onto their side, wheels reaching upward like a cubist’s version of a swollen deer carcass. I’m a little OCD. I prefer “a place for everything, and…” Well, you know the rest and perhaps you understand why Dave’s random method of open-air warehousing leaves me squeamish.
But when I read about geniuses like John Nash who could see perfect order in the midst of confusion (Russell Crow in A Beautiful Mind), it occurs to me perhaps I’m mathematically myopic and I simply don’t recognize Dave’s genius. Where he sees order I see weeds and clutter—rusting steel in muted pastels burnt white by the sun, mechanical zombies waiting to limp into town under the next full moon.
Just beyond the farmhouse the hillside steepens sharply to support a grand pin and beam barn, now weathered and grayed. Sun glints through its rough cut slab siding, some of which has curled in upon itself.
Dave and his wife built a new home in the middle of the twentieth century. Deferring preeminence to the original house, they located their home in a swale closer to the highway.
But the heartbeat of the George farm isn’t the farm; it’s the repair shop—a metal, military style, Quonset hut that has faithfully provided a mechanical art studio for several generations.
I pull open the door and step into the shop. There is no natural light; any glass has long ago been made opaque by decades of torch soot and diesel exhaust. I pause like a spelunker waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dim atmosphere. Still temporarily blind, I call on other senses in an attempt locate this twenty first century blacksmith. Off in the far corner, I hear the band saw gnawing at a piece of steel and smell the acrid odor of oil impregnated metal as it surrenders to the harangue of the relentless blade. Soon my vision improves and I see smoke pluming from the metal saw and wafting slowly toward the curved corrugated roofline destined to add yet one more coat of grime to an already established coal-black color palette. David comes into focus—one hand on his hip, the other resting patiently on the arm of the band saw.
“Hey, David!” I offer timidly, fully aware I’m in his church now and a little respect goes a long way. He rotates his head slowly but not so much as to make eye contact but just enough to nod in my direction, acknowledging my presence. I’m experienced enough to know I’m being put on hold. I stop in my tracks and wait. Soon he looks directly at me and I know that’s code for “you may advance and speak.” You see, if he ignored me, I wouldn’t be offended. I know from experience that he’s a kind man, but his kindness is limited to his safety, and a man’s full attention to life threatening equipment out ranks a customer hands down
I’m good with being humbled in Dave’s shop. I know he’ll get around to me in his own good time.
I’ve learned to take a humble and safe approach to the Heavenly Father. Saint Peter, perhaps the most impetuous personality in the New Testament wrote in his later years,
“Humble yourselves, then, under God’s mighty hand, so that he will lift you up in his own good time.” I Peter 5:6
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.