It looks kind of empty and hollow now, the gas pumps out front disappeared long ago. "Doc's" Garage was an institution. Located in Oak Hill Kansas population of fifty more or less... not located close to any town of size, with far more cows than people in the neighborhood. Orville Chartier or "Doc" as he was always known started out on the mid 1950's running the local service station at the edge of town. There were more people in town then... with a school and a post office.
A few years later he had polished his mechanical skills and needed more room to work. So he bought the building uptown that used to be a blacksmith shop and moved in. He would remain there for the next fifty years.
He would witness the town slowly fading away, the school closing, the post office disappearing, along with most of the businesses and families one by one. Doc was the last business on the two block gravel main street in recent years... until recently, when health issues finally took their toll.
I started going to Doc's when I was about 15 years old. It was like a step back in time. Doc was a patient person and would take the time to show you what he was working on and explain what was broken and how he planned to fix it. He could fix most anything, at least that was my view in those early days.
I went on to make regular visits two or three times a year for the next 40 years. During my visits to Doc's, I always got an education, some of it hands on.
For Example...There used to be an old pot belly stove in the office that he burned hedge wood in during the winter months. The building he was in was already fifty years old when he moved in some the windows were a little drafty and the walls had a few air gaps plugged with shop rags etc.
There was an old bar stool chair next to the wood stove. That is where you sat when you first came in from the cold.
One day on about my second or third visit I am sitting in the bar chair warming up and Doc comes in from the shop area to make out a bill...or so I assumed, as I had watched him do that many times. The locals were lined up on the church pew and I was listening to the conversation... they having made it clear they did not need much input from me though not in so many words.
Doc comes in sits down at his old roll top desk and the next thing I know my behind is getting the heck shocked out of it and the locals are having a good laugh at my expense.
Doc just smiled finished making out his bill and went back into the shop. I figured out upon doing some investigation, that there was an old tractor magneto in the bottom drawer of that roll top desk with the wires running out in front of his parts counter on the floor well hidden by the water pump, starter and generator cores lined up on the floor. There were two 16 penny nails in the seat of that chair about two ass cheeks apart.
You only got it once unless you were a slow learner. But then it was fun to watch the next victim experience the same thing you did. When it is twenty degrees out and you come in and sit next to the stove... you mind is at idle and all you are thinking about is getting warm. I never forgot that lesson. It taught me to pay attention more to what is going on around me. It was a good lesson for a kid who was thinking he knew it all.
I have sought out and visited hundreds of garages like Doc's over the years and they all seem to operate about the same. The owners are very resourceful and with parts being delivered only once or twice a week, you had to make those deliveries count or drive 80 miles round trip to get what you forgot to order which also cost you a half days labor in addition to the gasoline.
In the back of my mind, I always compared the rest of the garages I visited, to Doc's. He kind of set the standard. With Doc's recent passing, his garage will be cleaned out, an auction held and the building sold. It will truly be the end of an era. I am glad to have experienced it first hand.
Ironically not much changed in the forty years since my first visit to Doc's Garage. There was some comfort in that. It was kind of like going home. The bar stool disappeared when the stove burned thru...If you know anything about hedge wood you know it burns hot and provides good heat, but it is awful hard on stoves.
There was never any indoor plumbing at Doc's there was a hydrant out on the drive and the bathroom was an out house even up until the end. Lighting was powered by knob and tube wiring and 150 watt bulbs. Doc used a trouble light where he was working. It was something you never questioned.
So.. I want to share with you a few pictures from the inside of Doc's Garage. These were taken in 2018 although they could have been taken in 1980 as well. I went down and helped the family identify some of the old parts and tools Doc had. I am now 60 years old and it would be my chance to visit Doc's Garage one last time.
Doc needed something to help pull an engine out of a chassis so he made this lift bar out of an old axle. He used that for years.
All of his equipment was well used but it all worked.
Both of these were carried over from his service station days. The station was likely established in the 1920 or early 1930's.
Part of the line shaft equipment was still mounted to the ceiling from when the building was a blacksmith shop. Notice the old knob and tube wiring which was still being used.
This was in the shop area. There was a stove in the shop for heat but never any insulation in the walls or the ceiling. The lighting you see is all there was.
This was his cash drawer in the office. He rigged up a bell to the drawer so if anyone tried to get in it while he was working in the shop he could easily hear it.
The shelves behind his counter were full of parts both new and used. He seldom thru anything away because he might be able to use something off of a used part to fix something "to get by" until the new part showed up. He was very good at figuring out how to make something work with the used parts he had on hand.
Cleaning out these shelves we found parts he had bought in the late 1960's and did not use but kept on hand "just in case." It was like a treasure hunt. We also found parts for cars and trucks in the 1930's and 1940's. He had a system for locating parts in these shelves but nobody else could ever figure out how it worked.
How do you turn on the light behind the parts counter with your hands full? Simple...Use a dimmer switch with one side burnt out and mount it into an electrical box and set it on the floor. Then all you had to do was step on it to turn on the light.
He also did his bench grinder this way....walk up to it and step on the dimmer switch on the floor and it turned on. That worked good if you were working on something that required both hands to steady. Yep that is where I learned that trick.
I learned from Doc to look at things as how they function and not just at the application they were designed for. The dimmer switch was a good example. I used to just throw those away when one contact burned out. Not anymore....Thanks Doc!
So I hope you have had the same experiences I have had growing up and that there was a Doc in your neighborhood. We can learn a lot from the previous generation and we in turn need to pass that knowledge on to the next generation. This is stuff you can't learn from any book, you need to experience it first hand and then pass that opportunity along. Otherwise it will be lost forever!
