I grew up in a small, rural, Southern town. The local mechanic was a gentleman with the rather confusing name of Lorraine. I’d like to say Lorraine was a grammar school dropout, but fear I would be padding his resume. He lacked all the benefits of the educational system. His father had taught him to fix cars, then to run a garage.
I must have been about ten, riding in the back seat of a car, free to move about without the pesky seat belt laws our alien overlords have imposed on us in the modern age. My father was driving. Some other man rode shotgun.
We pulled into Lorraine’s garage so my dad could seek counsel. I followed my dad into the garage bay, because OSHA wasn’t a thing back then. My dad asked Lorraine to check the car “from bumper to bumper” to determine its overall condition.
When the stranger walked off to smoke a cigarette, Lorraine gestured for my dad to join him in front of the car, pointing under the hood in a clever subterfuge. He whispered, “Mister, is you buying or is you selling?”
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