Is it a Maine morning without Condon's Garage?
A landmark of a simpler life closes, but it will stay forever open and cluttered on Robert McCloskey's pages.
from the June 21, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Don's best recollection is that the building – graceful and beautifully proportioned outside, basic and functional inside – was built in 1924 by his great-grandfather, Ralph Condon. The "outer part" was intended to be the garage, the other half a store, and upstairs a movie house. The store never came to pass, nor did the movie house – talkies came in and local movie houses went out. One for three.
Ralph's sons, Russ and Dick, ran the garage until World War II when they had to shut it down to work in the shipyards. When the war ended, Russ opened Condon's Store on the other side of the church (where Sal and her dad got ice cream) and Dick ran the garage.
The third generation of Condons, Don and his older cousin Phil, have run the place for the past 30 years. Phil is mostly fishing and caretaking summer places now, and Don is scaling back, moving the garage business to his home-based shop far removed from the busy harbor. He'll continue with Mercury outboard motor sales and repairs and other miscellaneous boat and automotive work. Saws and mowers? Well, he isn't too enthusiastic about the mowers – can't make any money on them, he says.
The building will be sold and then, who knows? Another village institution, like the grange, the Odd Fellows, and the church sewing circle, receding into the past, to be replaced by the pale reflection of antique stores and tourist shops.
* * *
Don paused when I asked if he has a favorite story to tell. No sense in just blurting things out before you ponder the question a while. Then, slowly: "Over the years bicycle tires have caused as much of a dilemma as anything, I guess."
Seems that Gook (Oliver Bakeman, Jr., who ran the general store over in West Brooksville for many years) was hanging around the garage one day when a young man came up on a bike all outta breath. "Do you have an air hose?" he asked. "Yep," Gook answered, warning the young man that the air comes out of that hose pretty fast, so best be careful. To which the young man replied, "I know. I've done this before." Gook watched the young man wrestle with the hose. The tire exploded. Gook continued to watch – silent, unfazed; no need to waste any more words on this one.
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