Tondeleo: I never cease to be amazed at the creativity of some of these uneducated rural Americans. Many of them nave finished secondary school, and are not informed about (and indeed have no interest in) world events and politics, but they can invent and make almost anything.
Below is a picture that I took of a workbench on a wagon that was built by one of Doc’s friends, Gunter (yes, Gunter, not Gunther). Gunter is handy and creative and always has some new invention he has come up with.
Gunter is a family man, and like a lot of rural people, he keeps working on his house to improve it so it will be bigger and better for family gatherings over the holidays. He has added on an attached two car garage. He finished out his basement by adding a brick fireplace, a bar and family room. Across the back of his house, he has added a two story enclosed porch with a barbecue pit and exercise room.
No plans or blueprints were used. Indeed no building permits were obtained. Gunter pictured these things in his head and commenced to build them.
He made a portable workbench on a wagon so he could transport his tools easily and have a work surface to use them on whilst working on his projects.
Doc: Yeah, that Gunter can make anything and fix anything. He’s smart, and like the rest of us, he don’t have any money. When you ain’t got money, you gotta use your brain more. You can’t let it hold you back just ‘cause you ain’t got any money. Country boys can SURVIVE, Tondy!
That wagon workbench of his is really nice. He got the wagon part of it at a tool sale. Then, he took scraps of one inch angle and welded up a little table to fit just inside the edges of the wagon. He put a frame about 8 inched or maybe ten for support, and also to hold the Pepsi cartons that he uses to hold his hand tools.
The Pepsi cartons are held in with zip ties, so he can remove them if he wants. The workbench is not welded to the wagon, even though welding is faster and easier. He bolted it in, in case one day he wants to take it off and do something different with his wagon.
Gunter has a shop out back and he needs those wagon wheels to get his workbench from the house to the shop and back. Little wheels would get stuck in the mud.
This here picture is made under his porch what he built. Look at that floor! That didn’t costs him even one thin dime! He made it for free by pickin’ up old 2X4 scraps from off of construction sites and then cuttin’ them up into 10 inch sections and layin’ them on the sand what he put under his porch. That’s a good lookin’ floor, for free.
Gunter’s a smart one, for sure. You ought to show people the picture of his porch from the outside, how he framed out the screening by using wooden screen doors.
He got all kinds of things what is worth writin’ about. He can fix cars, weld, do masonry work, electrical work, carpentry work, all of it. And he does it good. Write about him, Tondy.
