The Makers IP LLC project is a culmination of a series of life adventures that circle around the premise that if THEY can do it I can do it to. I was graced with a family of craftsman and craftswomen that complemented the mindset that everything is a blessing, a god given gift, every bit of knowledge, skills, crafts, friendships, acquaintances, adventures, are on loan from a greater source that complements our direction in life. When asked as a Fearless Leader what cartoon character you think you would be. I would say Wile E Coyote, I have had a lot of adventures that fell just short of catching that roadrunner, the old ACME corporation and I have been excellent partners, we spent more than our share trying to catch that damn roadrunner.
Growing up in the south, in the country, folks of the land, my dad’s family embraced their surroundings as a superstore a “Pick N Save” of endless commodities that were ours for the harvest. My mother’s family were from the Northeast, different regions, different history, right from the first patriots, formally trained skill sets with a blend of regional traditional crafts. As I chase my adventures the history of these folks and how they chose to love complements the story. As a family unit the skill footprint is crazy, we all have a common point of beginning but like the rings around the stone thrown in a pond the talent rings get bigger and bigger, but we never lost site of the plunk point! As a collective we were all taught to respect all knowledge, crafts, skills and more than anything value the source, appreciate the transfer of information and always play it forward! It always seems the heart of my adventures are vehicle centered and I can say from an early age racing was my motivation, paying for it my focus.
Dad “William Calvin” was a surveyor by trade self-taught and licensed that spent the early days of that career on Cape Canaveral, fighting the elements, the terrain, the varmints (gators, snakes, spiders, bobcats) only a Florida cracker could deal with, turning a wicked patch of dirt into the Kennedy space center. He tuned his love of that craft into a seasoned field engineer, a civil engineer with construction trades experience, a project supervisor extreme if you will, a talent he matured into reputation of excellence. I have chased the engineer without a degree rabbit for years and have had a lot of fun with it in the articles I have written. There is not a day that goes by that I remind my students that even though their “Professors have engineering degrees; the majority are not engineers until they are getting the job done”. My dad was paid by Daniels Construction and Bechtel Steel to be a field engineer, no degree, I remember after being recruited to a project in PA, local union inspectors advised Bechtel that dad was not an engineer based on a law passed by PA politicians, advised by PIT civil engineering professors, that multiple years’ experience was discounted over any engineering degree. Bechtel wanted to give Dad an EIT from PIT, a politician’s son to quote hang out with him until job was completed. My dad did not like PA, the trip was a wasted drive, their turnaround sealed the deal. My dad loaded his tools and headed back to Florida. Dad made a choice to make a living in the dirt and mud but building cars was still his fire. His real job became a chore, a rainy winter, and the birth of a child (my brother) with asthma changed the “want to” of a hobby shop for race cars into a career change. A side gig buying junk and turning into dependable transportation that funded buying tools, parts, equipment turned into an income source. The Cal’s Body Shop adventure officially started in1969 and changed everything for my dad and his 10-year-old partner in crime. My mother “Joyce Louise” chased the bookkeeper route, in the late fifties everything was hand ledger, and the power of the bookkeeper was to buy into or devise a system that painted a picture of the business. My mother was exposed to the housing construction business in Titusville, FL powered by a Jewish construction company from the northeast. As a bookkeeper for the group, she fined tuned the records gathering experience into a business model that was in place until my parents retired.
I learned early that my lineage (family) thought in rhythm, they complemented each other with experience, confidence, knowledge, skills and raw talent. Any project my family chased had eyes on it and those eyes were part of a bigger source of expertise, demanded and received respect. The eyes knew when to bail you out or to just give you the nod. My direct source of family knowledge included 2-grandfathers, 2- grandmothers, 11 uncles, 11 aunts, and 12 of 26 cousins that were directly in the loop.
My dad’s father, J A Davis (John Armond Davis) heavy equipment operator/ road builder, taught himself to read and measure, he firmly believed that the only reason formal government school training was necessary was because most people are too lazy to teach themselves. 90% of what I learned from him was skills related, mechanical, machine operation, homestead related, harvesting from nature.
In 1935 He got drafted into a WPA program in Jacksonville, FL, bounced all over FL building roads, bridges, fire trails/ dirt roads, landfills, sea walls, planting trees, citrus groves until WWII, he was hired to work for Volusia County as a maintenance & machine operator. From the age of 16 to 22 years old, he learned a ton of traditional skills and realized that New Deal was as socialist in nature as the East European country model it was fashioned around. His opinion included a theory that as invasive as the program was without the WPA WWII would have never been won because nobody in America knew how to work. My grandmother “Elsie Rena” grew up in a restaurant family, crazy food skills, gardening, canning, she was the moral center of family, the family historian, she kept us connected as hard as we wanted to scatter.
My mom’s father, FES Smith (Frank Edward Stickney) sheet metal worker/ fabricator, formally trained in the Boston Mass trade school system. Gramp’s family were direct descendants that landed at Plymouth Rock. His history fueled my Patriot side. When you grow up with the founder’s history hammering in your head you respect the concept of a strong Republic, the direct tie to that nucleus of history is a gift you never lose. In mid-1950’s Gramp and family moved from Haverhill, MA to Melbourne, FL to work as civil servants at Patrick Airforce Base. Gramp was a republican, his deal was simple, the opportunities are there, they are there for you to take advantage of. He didn’t mind federal government building infrastructure, or defense but always wanted the workers of America building it. He had issues with the free ride and funding programs that were facilitated to buy votes, always felt that states needed to protect themselves from sellout federal politicians, his bottom line was easy “earn it”. My mom’s mother “Edna Louise” was a civil service typist, formally trained to transpose documents, handwritten by government types, the training included the ability to copy/type letters not words, as a security measure to not read the content of the information. When typing she never seen a word only typed the letters. That explains the typos in the Church bulletin years later, if Brother Donny wanted it edited, he picked the wrong chick.