The Lure of the Garage

The Lure of the Garage

by

Ted Ringer

Chapter One - The Call of the Wild

   He stood at the end of a long line of inventors.  This line consisted of himself, his father, and his father before him, or as we say in modern usage, his grandfather.  This may not seem like a long line, but it involved over 100 years of trying to make something from nothing and, at the same time, keep food on the table.  His father and grandfather had done just that and had done it with both style and success.  Until he came along, the line had been quite straight but not necessarily narrow.

   His grandfather, Charles Maxwell Colvin, or Charles, the First, as he liked to be called, had been a loud, overweight man with large whiskers.  He had invented, among other things, a kind of tube that vastly improved radio reception.  He always referred to this invention as "The Miracle."  This one invention had made it possible for his family to live in luxury.  It also allowed his grandson, the present inventor, to spend his childhood nights tuning in the important games from Chicago or rock and roll from Oklahoma City or news from Des Moines.  His grandfather, had he lived, would probably have shuddered at the content of these programs, but it had been the device and its mechanics and not its ultimate uses that had sparked his interest.

   The son of Charles, the First, Charles Maxwell Colvin, Jr., had been called C.J.  He hated being referred to as Junior.  He was a more quiet man, perhaps subdued by his father's volume, and had, among his many creations, developed a sonar-based improvement during the war that the Navy snapped up and ordered into the classified mists.  He was not enamored of the military, especially after this experience, and he spent the rest of his life working on items he thought might truly benefit mankind at large.  Items such as comfortable hair curlers or a fountain pen that would write at any angle or, his favorite, a special nail polish for classical guitarists.

   Both forebears had died while working.  His grandfather, from a blow to the head, caused by a low beam of considerable thickness.  He had encountered this as he responded to a bell, an invention of which he was quite proud, that signaled dinner.  They found him on the floor of his workroom amidst half-finished projects.  For once, he didn't look hungry.  The father of our present day inventor had died of an apparent heart attack, possibly occasioned by a discovery no one could understand.  His last words had been "I think I've got it!"  These deaths, in the line of duty, had a profound impact on Charles Maxwell Colvin III, known as, Max.  They scared him.

   Max, the invention of his creative father and patient mother, had, without actually deciding such a course, steered himself away from inventing.  As a student, he was receptive, though unfocused, and possessed enough curiosity to be considered dangerous by his teachers, but, once out of school, he tried hard to place himself beyond the range of what his father had called, "the Lure of the Garage" - that being the place where all this inventing supposedly took place.

   As a result, he had done ranch work in Wyoming.  He had driven large trucks in Colorado.  He had worked as a printer in Wisconsin.  These had been wonderful experiences for him, but ultimately they proved to be disasters.  In Wyoming, in response to what was referred to there as ‘ornery critters’, he created a system of metal fencing that caught on big time.  In Colorado, at a desperate moment, he made a kind of tire chain out of plastic soda pop holders that, with a few modifications, went on to become standard equipment on mountain passes.  And, in Wisconsin, after he found himself threatening a printing press with a hammer, he came to his senses and devised a paper feeder that made the hammer unnecessary.

   No matter what he did or where he went, it seemed he couldn't escape his heritage of inventing.  It asserted itself at moments of crisis.  It whispered to him as he showered in the morning.  It suggested improvements as he crossed at the streetlight.  It shouted at him as he balanced his checkbook. 

 

   He never intended to come up with these things.  He had never worked in the methodical way of inventors to improve things; it never occurred to him.  They simply popped out in response to a need and, as they did, Max feared that he was hearing that call of the garage he had been trying all his life to leave behind.

   It worried him.  He kept moving from place to place, but it did no good.  He was afraid to lie down at night because his dreams were filled with discoveries he would rather forget.  A doorknocker that tap danced.  A non-clogging drain.  Unbreakable shoelaces.  This kind of thing, this obsession with making, had killed his father and had indirectly brought about his grandfather's death and he wanted no part of it.

 

   He tried hypnosis, he sought out non-materialistic religions, he considered the Foreign Legion but, in the end, he found that all driveways led to that innocent-looking hotbed of activity.  The lure of the garage had proven itself too strong for him.  His genes had spoken.  His past had shaken hands with his present.  He was going home.