My late grandfather was a master at "southern engineering". He was a talented mechanic, plumber, and welder. After he passed away in 2001 my father and I cleaned out his old shop. I do wish that my father had not thrown that set of brand new '56 Impala armrests into the trash fire while we were cleaning.

We rummaged through copies of old invoices for work he had done for customers dating back to the late forties. What was so amusing to me were the numerous homemade tools he had lying around. I would ask my dad, "What's this?" and dad would rattle off some story about how my grandfather used that particular tool to do this that or the other.

In my grandfather's last 25 years he stopped working on cars and settled in on small engine repair. My brother and I played for hours in the "scrap yard" of old mowers. Our grandfather built us some pretty neat tractors and we tore up our fair share of property with them. He was a very creative man.

He passed the "southern engineering gene" on to me. People laugh at me when I tell them how I engineered some fixes for my MB. Those that knew my grandfather say, "That's sounds just like Calvin".

Kevin