Where I'm From

I believe in life it is always important to remember where you came from. Too many people grow up, move away, and forget all about the people, places, and things that got them where they are.  Luckily in my life I have had the opportunity to experience a lot of awesome things, go a lot of awesome places, and have met great people. And being from a podunk town in southern Indiana only a short 45 min drive away from Kentucky I can assure you that none of them have lacked excitement.

I’ll start with a brief explanation of where I grew up. My home address read Greensburg, IN, which is a small town in Southern Indiana with a population of 11,638, and their claim to fame is that we have a tree growing out of our courthouse. But I did not live in Greensburg. NO, I lived about 2 miles outside of Clarksburg, which is about a 20 min drive outside of Greenburg. Clarksburg consists of 1 gas station, 2-dozen houses, and more churches than any town its size should have. If it wasn’t for the occasional overwhelming smell of battery acid (go figure) and the single 4 way stop you would probably miss it.

photo credit Steve Hull 2009  

I grew up in a house way up on a hill and surrounded by woods. Our garage is a decent 1500 square foot building with four bays, one of which is a spray booth. This is where I work with my dad as young as the age of 6 painting racecars, hot rods, helmets and whatever else we got into. I learned a lot there and am still learning in that very same paint booth.

At the age of 14 I got my first job detassling corn. This SUCKED! But it made money and I liked that. I did that for two years making $4.25 an hour. When I turned 16 I got my first real job in a local body shop, Corvettes and Classics. My boss and the owner of the business was Kenny Shingler. He was from a SMALL no name town outside of Athens Ohio that made Clarksburg look like Abu Dhabi. This is where I learned the most about bodywork and painting. Even today Kenny still produces the highest quality paint jobs I have ever seen, Seriously his work towers over any Riddler winner car I have ever seen.

After working for Kenny for a summer I went onto working at a bigger shop in Shelbyville, IN about a 45 commute ever morning. At Joe Baird’s vintage racecar and motorcycle restoration. If you ever feel your life is missing a little culture, excitement, or is just a little too boring, check this place out.  Joe Baird owned the shop. Joe is from Louisville, Ky and was raised on a JUNK YARD. If you have ever met someone who was raised on a junkyard you will understand. We worked next door to an occasionally shady automotive collision shop that was owned by Randy. Randy has a very unique personality to go along with his criminal record. At Joe’s I got the opportunity to work on the types of cars that I was specifically interested in. I worked on vintage sprintcars, excelsior motorcycles, and hot rods. I loved it. Easily the most unique part about working at Joes was the small petting zoo that we had behind the shop. Joe loved animals and at one time had 2 goats 2 donkeys and 2 dogs. The dogs both died and one of the goats turned out to be a MURDERER.  The best of it all was that occasionally I would get surprise visits while painting in the spray booth from Bill the goat who happened to be an escape artist also and would finagle his way into the building from his pen in the back and then down the narrow passage between the paint booth and the wall and then into the booth while the paint was still wet.

            Recently Joe suffered a heat attack and underwent a triple bypass surgery. He is in recovery and is doing well. I wish him all the luck in a speedy recovery.