[DieselDoctor]

When I was 10 or 11 (mid '60's), a neighbor buddy and I would go to the local scrap yard on our bikes and dig through the piles. With the owners permission, we'd find lawnmowers that looked complete. The yard owner would tease us about what were we "going to do with that? It's just scrap iron!" We'd buy the mower for a couple of bucks or sometimes get it free and drag it home, then try to make it run. Usually it was simple. A dirty carb or a fouled plug, no spark, dirty points or maybe a busted recoil. People would throw stuff away with no thought of fixing it. We'd get it running, swapping parts around from other mowers and then put them out front for sale for $15 or so. Our parents would talk them up to friends and we sold quite a few! As soon as we got a few bucks, we'd hit the ice cream stand that was just around the corner from the scrap yard. Then the process started all over again! If old Mr. Kaplan from Kaplan's Recyling is looking down on us, a big thank you for treating the neighborhood kids as people not a nuisance. He would set stuff aside for us so we could "find"it. His kindness gave me a start in a lifelong career as a mechanic.