[TheForge] Good story, guys ;-)

[Saint Phlip]

http://waldo.villagesoup.com/opinion/story.cfm?storyID=111974

'Just being helpful' — An appreciation of Chet Grady

By Richard Stander
(March 29): Coming from a very competitive farming community in
Western Mass., where folks weren't too helpful toward newcomers, I was
unprepared for the generosity of spirit I encountered when I first met
Chet Grady in 1986 shortly after we arrived in Belfast.

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In the middle of my first spring's plowing, the water pump on my
tractor blew a seal. Trying to drive the seal out, I had put a small
crack in the housing.

"Take it over to Chet Grady," advised our new friend, Ann Wilson.

And so I got directions, jumped into the truck and drove over to
Chet's shop, just a hundred yards from his home on Tufts Road.

By chance, he was there, though it took a few moments of getting used
to the dim light before I saw him. What I first noticed was the shiny
red hydraulic press standing near the door, and the stacks of sheet
steel and rods of all sizes on the floor.

But everything else in the shop seemed dated to the 1920s. In the
largest part of the shop the machinery was powered by a single,
vintage electric motor, in its own well in the floor. Through gears
and rods the motor drove an overhead shaft, connected to individual
tools with drum pulleys and long flat belts.

I had just stepped back in time.

Chet was hunched over a milling machine, and with the clatter of
machinery and the slap of the belts, didn't hear me come in.

When he noticed me, he reached up and disengaged the machine and
walked over to a switch on the wall to shut the motor down. I, of
course, was in awe — I hadn't seen the likes of this shop since I was
a boy — and Chet seemed delighted to answer all my questions.

It was clear that Chet adored this machinery, which had faithfully
done the work it was asked to do for decades, above all lending itself
to being fixed with the tools at hand, even cloning its own parts.

What mechanic would want more?

My dad, an old-time heavy construction carpenter who dressed logs into
timbers with broad ax and adze, never owned a power tool. And yet he
thought that the highest praise one could give a man was to call him a
"good mechanic."

As we went through the shop Chet picked up that I shared his respect
for old tools and the work that can be done under the guidance of a
skilled hand.

He remembered what year his father, the village blacksmith, added this
or that tool. Among the things I learned that day was that Chet was
the first of Maine's sons to master the magic of arc welding.

The welding outfit and the oxy-acetylene torch replaced the blacksmith
forge, and were the only concessions to "modern tools" I saw.

Oh, yes, and the hydraulic press.

Now we went over to the press and within about an hour's time the old
seal was pressed out, the crack repaired and the replacement I brought
along snugged into position.

Since I hoped to make a few more passes on the field I was plowing
before dark, I thanked Chet for his work and asked him how much I owed
him.

"Well, that'll be $5," Chet replied.

I had heard that Chet didn't charge a lot for his work, but I wasn't
very gracious with his answer and protested that it didn't seem
enough, considering the time spent on the job.

With that, Chet put his arm around my shoulder, and as if he were
talking with a callow youth, gently said, "Richard, the important
thing is being helpful, isn't it?"

So, let's all wish a happy birthday to Chet Grady: Belfast treasure,
good mechanic, fine man.




-- 
Saint Phlip

Heat it up
Hit it hard
Repent as necessary.

Priorities:

It's the smith who makes the tools, not the tools which make the smith.

.I never wanted to see anybody die, but there are a few obituary
notices I have read with pleasure. -Clarence Darrow