Mechanics: Now called technicians

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

We have been living in the automotive age for about 110 years now. The exact number of years depends on just which cars you think of as beginning the automobile age.

Of course, a few motor cars had been invented as early as the 1890s. The Oldsmobile comes to mind as an example. It was basically a buggy with a motor underneath, but that made it a horseless carriage, or motor car. Nevertheless, several years passed before motor cars began to be mass produced in a way that could make the machines affordable and practical for people to buy them and operate them.

The invention of motor cars was just one of the momentous developments coming out of the industrial revolution, with the invention of many machines that would begin to take on tasks of manufacturing and transportation in the changing society of the late 19th century. It was an age of great factories powered by steam engines and great steam locomotives running the railroads to transport goods all over the developing country. With the coming of this machine age came also the mechanic’s trade. All this machinery called for maintenance people and repair people to keep the machinery oiled and regulated, and to repair machines which broke down in operation.

By the time I came along in the 1940s, the term “mechanic” had come to be used primarily for men who did automobile maintenance and repair. The facilities where they worked on cars might be called an automobile repair shop or service shop; but quite often the repair shops were called So-and-So’s Garage.

One of the earliest garages I recall in Pea Ridge was Johnny Buttry’s Garage, located just north of the funeral home in Pea Ridge, across today’s North Curtis Avenue from the T.H. Rogers Lumber sheds. To a certain extent, filling station operators like Floyd Hall might be called mechanics, but usually the term “mechanic” referred to a rather skilled repairman who could do a wide variety of serious car and truck repairs. We thought Johnny Buttry could fix about anything on the road.

After World War II, Jack and Joe Lasater established their garage at the corner of today’s Pickens Road and Davis Street, where the downtown motel now sits. Jack had been a tank mechanic in the war in Holland, Belgium and Germany, so he came to the business with considerable Army training and skill. In the mid-1950s, Jack and Joe moved their business out to the intersection of Arkansas Highways 72 and 94, where today’s White Oak Station stands. There, Joe developed a car sales business, while Jack majored in automotive maintenance and repair. They sold Phillips 66 gasoline and oil there for many years.

Also, in downtown Pea Ridge, in the early 1950s, Charles Hardy built a garage across the street from Johnny Buttry’s place. Charles sold Lion gasoline, and did automotive repair for many years. The former Charles Hardy “Garage” is now part of the T.H. Rogers Lumber and Building Materials business.

I’m not hearing the term “mechanic” used very much these days. Today’s mechanics commonly are referred to as automotive technicians or some similar term. When I was doing mechanic work myself, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, we still thought of ourselves as “mechanics,” and we took a certain pride in being “mechanics.” Of course today’s cars and trucks make use of very different technologies, given the electronic control modules, fuel injection systems and alternator units supplying the electrical power. Today’s technicians have to be skilled in using computer diagnostic systems and must be familiar with the numerous high-tech features which are part of today’s vehicles.

Many of us who were boys growing up in the 1950s were part of the “Shade Tree Mechanic” tradition. Farm life tended to encourage self-reliance, including learning to fix problems with vehicles, tractors and farm machines there on the farm. We didn’t think we could afford to take everything to a dealer or pro shop, so we set in to learn to do mechanical repairs ourselves. The shade tree mechanic of course didn’t work on shade trees, but often did his mechanic work outdoors under a shade tree. A good shade tree provided some respite from the hot sun, and also provided stout limbs from which a hoist could be hung in case one needed to “pull” the engine. We shade tree mechanics did much of our learning by trial and error, including many “errors.” We also learned by talking to real mechanics or by watching them at their work.

The old saying, very important to shade tree mechanics, went like this, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!”

My first car was a 1949 Pontiac. I’ll bet I set the timing on my Pontiac a hundred times before I was satisfied. I didn’t have a timing light, so I would twist the distributor a bit in the direction I supposed to be needed, then take the car on the road to see if it was peppy and if I heard too much ignition pinging. Those shade tree methods don’t work so well on today’s cars.

Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister and on the board of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. The views expressed are the author’s. He can be contacted by email at joe369@centurytel.net, or call 621-1621.