The Man Garage
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The 1980's. I only parked a car in their one time, just to see if it would fit. It did. Other than that, it wasn’t a garage to put the car in. It was a garage to be a man in. It was a rock and roll garage.

When we moved into the house on Cronk Lane, the one-car garage already had a work bench. It was my intention to tear it out and build a new one, but there was really no reason to. This was a well seasoned work bench with character. After awhile I had my friend Bobby come over and put in some electrical outlets. I had plenty of juice to run my stuff.

The overhead door was easy enough to lift, the problem was that it took very little effort to lower it. Sometimes it would fall on it’s own, so I got in the habit of fastening a bungee cord to one of the arms whenever I had it open. Didn’t want it falling on a kid.

Mostly it was a place of solitude. A place where you could do man things, like listen to the stereo and tapes, work on the mower, work on dirt bikes, write and draw and just sit and think, dream. There was plenty of room to keep what little bit of stuff we owned at the time. Above the washer and dryer, there were some built in cabinets that never came close to being filled up.

In the late 80’s when I sold my video store, I brought all the movies to the house to store them until I could sell them. I put up some temporary shelves and nailed the outside door shut. This was my nest egg and I had to protect it.		 The garage evolved over the years and was used in different ways. Sometimes the yard equipment would seem to take over, and then I would clean it out so I could sit on the homemade barstool and meditate. Or I could open the door (attach bungee) and sit in the driveway and watch the cars go by on a summer night. If a friend would come over, we would talk in the garage. It was our den.

My great garage was at it’s greatest when I had my 1982 Suzuki RM125 parked on a milk crate right in the middle of it. I always had it sitting straight up (no kickstand) and facing out the door. I loved taking it apart and working on it. Once I peeled the graphics off and put my own wavy black strips of vinyl on it to resemble a Cincinnati Bengals helmet. That week I actually won a race! The garage looked good with all my motocross gear and spare parts hanging up in it. Once we even had a 1983 Yamaha PW50 that belonged to Joey. The premium addition to the garage was probably when I bought a shiny red, new Mac bottom toolbox and brought that baby home. I would just sit and look at that toolbox and dream about the day I could afford some tools to put in it.

I sure liked my biked-up, mowered-up garage. Every man should have one.