Ah yes! A new year. And the cynic would say, “Can’t wait for someone to make a mess of this year, too.”

Crazy Bob’s Cut Rate was an independent gas station a couple of blocks up the road from where we moved to in Nampa, Idaho, the summer of 1956.

I forget who told this story many years ago, so I can’t give proper credit, but here goes: A fellow and his young bride were exploring part of a town that had many small shops.

One of the first times I was working with T-1 steel, I noticed that the sparks made while using a handheld grinder had a different shape than sparks made while grinding on mild steel.

Positive and negative. Not as in right versus wrong but as a direction, like north versus south, right versus left. (“Left turn here?” “Right.” So, I turned right. “No, no. Correct, not turn right!”)

It was a sky-blue bicycle with the then-popular “banana” seat, and it had lots of pink frills, obviously a girl’s bike. It showed up under the Christmas tree one year, and our 6- or 7-year-old daughter was over the moon with delight.

Big outfits usually have their own big shops. Medium-sized outfits will sometimes have their own shop space or may heavily use a dealer or an independent mechanic and/or lube shop.

A fellow I’ve known for what seems like forever had a real dislike for horses, for what seemed like good reason. About the time he was getting serious about high school, a horse fell on him and mangled both bones of a lower leg. He said it seemed like he spent all but a couple of weeks of high school in a cast or on crutches.