portrait of a master tinkerer

Charlie shared this photo from his recent visit to St. Joe.  I love how it captures EMG utilizing his >40-year-old pickup as something of a mobile shop.  And in the background - the shed on the hill farm - where he essentially ran his shop for decades.  (After building that same shed.)

At very front/bottom left of the photo is a simple rectangular toolbox - its contents are splayed across the rest of the endgate - this is the basic toolbox that was carried on shelling jobs, and elsewhere, in my 1960s-70s memories.  It was backed over by trucks several times - no problem, EMG just hammered it back into shape.

The gauge at top left sits atop an ancient air compressor - an item fired up every morning before we went off to clean out corn cribs or grain bins - aging truck tires needed to be filled, after all.

I see a couple items that didn't exist in the '70s (or at least we didn't have 'em) - witness the weed whacker, for example.  And we didn't use much plastic then - right behind that old toolbox at bottom/front left is a plastic container that I'm pretty sure doesn't contain maple syrup.

It might look a little disorganized, but I'll wager that some thought went into the placement of each item in the pickup bed.

On he goes, a classic shade tree mechanic.