In Memory of Mac the Macnificent!
This past Saturday I was cutting my yard (yes, I am one of the few who still cuts their own grass!) and a part on my lawnmower broke. I could still use the lawnmower, so when I got done I took it into my lawnmower repair guy Mac. His shop is right next door to an equipment rental store, and so when his door wouldn’t open, I popped into the rental store to find out when Mac would be back.
The guy at the counter gave me some terrible news, Mac had passed away! He died back in June of this year from a blood clot. He was probably in his late 60′s or early 70′s.
Mac was the kind of guy who could fix anything, especially if it had a motor. His shop was full of old lawnmowers, blowers, edgers, pressure washers, mixers, saws. When you took your lawnmower in, Mac would eyeball it, mumble in his low gruff voice, “I can fix that, come back in a week.” No paperwork, no minimum fees, no credit cards.
In 2004 Hurrican Ivan blew through Pensacola, came up the Chattahoochee river and blasted Atlanta. It flooded Peachtree Creek in our neighborhood. We were the last house in our neighborhood to get flooded. All of my gas powered lawn equipment got flooded and covered with layers of Georgia red clay silt and muck. I took them all into Mac. When he looked at them, it seemed as if he had a gleam in his eye. I thought all of them were totalled. He looked at me, ran his hands over the equipment, and for the first time ever, I saw him smile. He said, “Don’t worry, I can bring these babies back to life!” I thought he was crazy, but I left them. Two weeks later, I went to pick them up, and they all looked brand new! I think he charged me $125 for four pieces of equipment.
No paperwork, no cash register, you just wrote him a check. He did have a business card however. All it said was Mac, Small Engine Repair, showed his phone number and his email. His email said it all…..Macnificent2003! When I saw that, I laughed out loud….in my car of course, not in front of Mac. Mac was not a computer guy, I figured someone told him he should have an email address. But Macnificent he was!
I figure that with all the golf courses in heaven, there are plenty of lawnmowers and other gas powered equipment needed to keep them as pristine as I have heard they are in heaven. Right now, Mac is literally in small engine heaven, keeping those engines running…..he never met an engine he couldn’t fix!