Brad Nelson

I forget what we were working on underneath the car my wife used daily. My helper claimed he was an extremely competent mechanic.

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.