Such a deal: Larry’s garage kept Scottsdale moving
Today, our country is enjoying a low unemployment rate. It certainly hasn’t always been the case, especially in recent years. I can remember what it’s like not to have a job.
I was unemployed in July 1951. I had just graduated from mortuary college in San Francisco. My wife, Cora, was expecting our first baby, and I needed work.
I approached Ivy Avery about a temporary job in his service station. Ivy didn’t have anything but suggested I go up the road and see Larry Shaw about work in his garage.
Larry Shaw had good tools and good work values. He spent his life as a mechanic. He worked under grueling weather conditions in a tin shed that had three bays with nothing but three portable fans for cooling in the summer.
Larry asked me if I had any experience overhauling engines. I explained I had worked on my own and friends’ vehicles. He told me I could start at 7 a.m. the next day.
I found that the job involved Larry, another young man about my age (and level of experience) and me overhauling three cars a day. The cars were 1930s and 1940s Fords, Chevys, Plymouths and Dodges.
Upon arriving at 7 a.m., we were each assigned a car. We started by draining the oil. Then we removed the crankcases, dropped the pistons and removed the valves, valve springs and heads from our assigned cars.
We cut out the cylinder ridges, checked for bad valves, springs and seals, determined the size and type for the new piston rings, checked the crank shaft and determined what bearings were needed. When all the vehicles were apart, Larry made a list of the parts needed to finish the overhaul and went to Avery’s Parts Store to purchase what we needed.
That’s when we’d break for lunch.
Larry supervised the grinding and seating of the valves and any work on the bearings and cranks. He let us clean the pistons, replace the rings and reassemble the engines. He made all the decisions on hoses, belts, points, plugs and other replacement parts.
About 4 p.m., we put fresh oil in the engines, fresh water in the radiators and a little oil down each piston hole in preparation for restarting the engines.
By 5 p.m., all three cars were running smoothly and ready for their owners to pick them up. Larry charged the owners $65 for labor plus parts. The total rarely exceeded $120. Any car that wasn’t fixed right the first time was redone at no charge.
Larry usually had a waiting list of customers.
We were paid $2.50 per hour, less deductions, for our work. That amounted to a little more than $100 per week.
After nearly three months working at Larry’s garage, I did what a lot of unemployed Americans did during the Great Recession. I went back to college.
But I’m still proud of what I learned working for Larry Shaw in the summer of 1951.
Reared on a local dairy farm, former Scottsdale city councilman (1971-76), state legislator (1979-85) and honored oral historian Paul Messinger founded Messinger Mortuaries in 1959. He can be reached at 480-860-2300 or 480-945-9521.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Such a deal: Larry’s garage kept Scottsdale moving
