So... about ten or twelve years ago, my mechanic began decorating his garage for Christmas. This garage is on busy Mayfield Road here in Cleveland Heights and possibly thousands of cars drive by every day. A & A Auto is located in an old (1920's) three bay garage somewhat close to the street. The interior is very drabby and oily. The personality of this garage is old-school dirt but the craftmanship level is high quality. It's the type of place where Fonzie would have worked. There's only room in the parking lot for less than a dozen parked cars. It's a small, reputable operation and it's visibility is tremendous.
So when Tom began decorating his place for the holidays, I was charmed. But the decorating stunk. It was just awful. There are three very large picture windows in front and two on the side. I think he put one measly string of lights around one window and that was it. The following year, he did something similar but it was even worse 'cause he only went up 1/2 way around the window. It was terrible. Year three he put one string of lights across the tops of all three front windows and then let the ends hang. At that point I was finished. I won't take up space in today's blog to talk about the fact that I was a professional Christmas decorator for nearly twenty years. But, I was. I'll tell that story another time when I have nothing else to write about. All you need to know for the sake of today's blog though, is that I'm good at Christmas decorating.
So, the following year, about six, seven or eight years ago, I marched into Tom's place long about early November and announced that I was taking over the Christmas decorating of his shop. For free. Just as a favor to the citizens of Cleveland Heights. He was happy as a bug in a rug.
It's not really a big project. Just takes me a couple of hours to hang multiple strings of lights around each of the five windows. Every year I decide what color to go with. The lights are typically dead by the time I take them down 'cause they're plugged in 24/7 once I install them. So I'm not usually able to re-use them too much during the ensuing years. But lights aren't really expensive any more anyhow.The last couple of years I've really been into the old-fashioned multi-colored look. So that's what Mayfield Road drivers see when they're stuck at the light in front of Tom's place. It seriously isn't a big or complicated project for me. But it makes Tom happy and it really does improve the streetscape a little.
When I was finished the first year, Tom exclaimed, "Jeremy, this looks F%#@ing awesome!" Then, as I was leaving, he told me that my next oil change was on the house. I didn't say no to that. Nowadays, it's rare that he ever charges me for an oil change. He's just so thrilled to have me do the lights each year. I'm also quite friendly with all his mechanics and they like the way I dress the place up for Christmas too.
I've mentioned before that I've filmed a number of cooking videos for YouTube. I have about 15 completed but haven't yet posted any. Three very short ones were filmed in A & A last spring just for the fun of it. One of these days I really need to start posting those things.
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| Still Life. Entitled: "Auto Repair Garage With Purple '73 Dodge Charger" |
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| It's not much... but it's home |
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