Shop Ghosts

John D. McAtee Sr. 1915 - 1997

John D. McAtee, Sr. was a lifeguard, truck driver, circus trapeze artist, nightclub performer, World War II veteran, barnstorming pilot, tramp electrician, construction foreman and my father. After going through the war in the Pacific theatre and running out of money paying for airplanes, he picked up his tools and pursued becoming an electrician, which was something that had always interested him and something he never seemed to tire of doing.

My earliest memory of my father is one where he put me in a jeep, drove out to a grass airstrip and put me in the front seat of a Stearman (i.e., an open-cockpit biplane used as a primary flight trainer). Not being tall enough to see out, he fixed the straps so that I could stand up in the seat. Then, and often later, he would fly over our house upside down with me happily dangling out of the cockpit. To say that my mother was less happy with these episodes would be a great understatement. Later on, he taught me how to use the stick and rudder to throw the plane around the sky. These flights were gifts of the spirit of freedom, adventure and accomplishment that every young child should have to carry them forward through life. There were others, including hand-me-down tools that he thought I would never learn to use.

Among his best gifts were the things he never gave to me. He neither gave me a car nor let me drive his. I had to buy my own by holding down three jobs (i.e., lifeguard, highway construction and greasemonkey). He did not give me the money to go to college, I had to pay my own way with a partial scholorship and a full-time night job.

It pleased my father to no end when I built my first workshop because he understood what it meant for the future. He enjoyed being down there with me and humorously criticizing my work. His tools now hang on my shop wall where I can see and readily find them. During one our last phone conversations, he said I spent all of your inheritance. I replied, It is about time. What took you so long? Months after his death, an ornamental mill showed up in my garage. It was a gift from my father. He and my mother overcame extreme poverty and some of life's toughest challenges to leave a legacy.