1963 Mercury Comet Repair & The NASCAR Wood Shop 📎🚙

Automotive engineering and 1963 Mercury Comet repairs. Behind the scenes of a NASCAR race team woodshop...

What do you do when you retire from a corporate career but still want to build things? If you're Mark Freibaum, you buy a 24-foot NASCAR auto hauler and transform it into a mobile woodworking shop for kids. 🛠️🏁

In this episode, we sit down with Mark inside his incredible "Woodworks on Wheels" trailer to discuss his mission to bring the lost art of shop class back to a new generation. We also take a trip down memory lane to his first car—a 1963 Mercury Comet that his dad rescued from a junkyard for $35 (and required a paperclip to start).

We also cruise through his memories of owning a massive 1964 Buick Electra 225 (the legendary "Deuce and a Quarter"), racing slot cars in the basement, and his current project: creating 3D-printed Bugatti-inspired Pinewood Derby cars.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• 🏁 The NASCAR Workshop: How Mark converted a bare auto hauler into a state-of-the-art mobile woodshop to teach kids trade skills.
• 🚙 The Junkyard Comet: The story of his first car, a 1963 Mercury Comet, which was bought for $35, fixed by a high school shop class, and started with a paperclip.
• 📏 The "Mantis": Why he misses his 1964 Buick Electra 225, a 21-foot-long luxury land yacht he bought for $500.
• 🏎️ Tiny Racers: From HO slot cars to a Bugatti-themed Pinewood Derby event, how model cars spark a lifelong love for engineering.
• 🛠️ Trades & Arts: Mark’s philosophy on why woodworking is both an art and a trade, and why it's vital to keep these skills alive.

Mark was hooked on our podcast after hearing the unusual Trabant and Tucker episode with Andrew: https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/17009738

Whether you're a maker, a classic car fan, or just love a story about giving back to the community, Mark's journey is sure to inspire you to build something great.

🔗 Links & Resources:

• Visit Mark's project: woodworksonwheels.com
• Check out our content and  60+ episodes on LinkTree 🔗🌲 https://linktr.ee/carsloved
• Check out our Guest-inspired Road Trip Playlist on Spotify: 🎧🚗 https://carsloved.com/playlist

📢 Join the Conversation: Did you take shop class in school? Let us know on Instagram @toallthecarsivelovedbefore

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Transcript

Warm-Up And Shoutouts

Christian 0:04

Welcome back, listener land. You have found two all the cars I've loved before your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where every car tells a story and every car has a culture. You know what time it is. It's time to plug in, dust off, get little grease under the nails, and slip on that favorite car theme t-shirt. Speaking of which, I'm wearing one. My partner is always wearing one. Good afternoon. How you doing there, Doug? Doing great. Great to be back here. Alright, so what I can't read the shirt.

Doug 0:34

What you got? So it says Rich Rebuild.

Christian 0:38

Oh yeah.

Doug 0:39

Rich has a YouTube channel. I think I saw that he wrote a book recently. He does the craziest, coolest, kind of like Speedy Cop. Yeah. He took, I don't know, Dodge Charger SRT with a big V8 and took the body off and put a Chrysler minivan body on top, for example. Yeah. Okay. He's converted cars from gas to electric. He's done about everything. And uh so the show is called uh Rich Rebuilds on YouTube, hoping to have him on in a future episode. Read my mind, I was about to ask.

Tees, YouTubers, And Future Guests

Christian 1:17

He's close, what he's close to Pennsylvania. It's it's Roger Dodger. Okay, good stuff. What else did we want to chat through? Or did we recent show? Recent show. Oh, yeah.

Doug 1:31

Yeah. Most recently, depending on when you're listening to this, it's already out. We had a Guinevere Fresh from Fresher Brothers in in Greenwich, Greenwich, I gotta say it the right way. Greenwich, Connecticut, who has a Fresher Brothers garage, 100-year-old family business. They've been working on Volkswagens since the 50s, since they first came to town. Now they do restorations on all things air-cooled. So whether it's Volkswagen Porsche or the American Corvair.

Christian 2:09

Yeah, such an interesting, wonderful family, family legacy. And she's just a tremendous person. It's a blast to make her acquaintance. Yeah. We got a road trip up there to uh we gotta buy a VW so that we have a reason to bring it up there. And then we can just kind of like hang out and talk to her dad and everybody that works in the garage.

Doug 2:29

Maybe we could have one of our past show guys, Aiden, who was on with his dad, who was a Volkswagen guy. He said he was born in the wrong, wrong time period. Absolutely. He came up with the every car has a culture, and we we took that statement. And uh he recently got his own Volkswagen 1972 Super Beatle named Miss Maggie the Bug. Yep.

Spotlight On Fresher Brothers VW Legacy

Christian 2:53

Just a small matter of his being about 2,000 miles away from uh Greenwich, Connecticut. But you know what? Hey, it's just a problem to be solved. I did want to say let's see. Uh thank the listener. Okay, so when we go into the analytics of the show, it says, here are the people, here's where you have been heard around the world over the past five days to a week. I think the the filter was set for five days. So hey, if you're in Roanoke, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Paris, Plano, Toronto, Fairfax, Virginia, oh maybe that was my son Conrad, or Brooklyn. Hey, we appreciate you listening. And if you like what you hear, please help us grow by telling a friend, telling somebody, Carslove.com is where you can find all of our online presences, Linktree, pictures, reviews, all this good stuff to all the cars I've loved before. Check it out on your podcast platform, streaming platform of choice. Good deal. So welcome back. We appreciate you listening. And oh, did you want to get in here real quick before we introduce today's guest?

Doug 4:01

No.

Christian 4:02

All right. We can go right to our guest. All right. And I think that's all of our prologue. So again, help us grow if you like what you're hearing. But Doug, we got to introduce today's wonderful guest, really interesting guy. We seem to have all hit it off. How did Mark cross your cross your radar, so to speak?

Doug 4:26

Well, there seems to be six degrees of separation between me and everybody else on the eastern viewer in your case, I think. Yep. And it all seems to link back to our buddy Andrew Blackwood. What an awesome guy. Just happened to meet him at a uh at a car show. He was driving a Trabant. He lists to know he had like 14 other cars. And uh he's paramedic on the Eastern Shore. He's introduced us to countless numbers of people, and that's how we fascinating guy.

Christian 4:55

Renaissance man.

Doug 4:56

Yeah.

Christian 4:56

Yeah. Good deal. Well, Mark, welcome to the show. How are you this afternoon? I'm doing great. And a shout out to Andrew Blackwood as well. And thank you for facilitating the introduction. You got it. Welcome aboard. And you uh a lot of times we introduce our guests and they're in a garage, they're in their basement, they're in, but but Mark, you're broadcasting from a very special location. And could you tell us a little bit about what you are inside right now?

Listener Love And Where To Find Us

Mark 5:31

It's it's cold in here. I'll tell you. I know you're quasi-outside. Well, yeah, no, the the back door is open. I am currently inside a 24-foot NASCAR auto hauler. And for those in the car biz, they should be no strangers to this thing. I bought it in Delaware naked. It was just a box. And then I tricked it out into a wood shop for children, and everything in it is shrunk down to their size, and it's every bit a modern wood shop that an adult would use, but it's inside of a NASCAR auto hauler.

Christian 6:17

And we got a pause right there. If you I'm tell everybody in the world, I don't care if you're listening in Australia, Japan, the Philippines, Paris, or Plano, you want to put a smile on your face, drop what you're doing. Well, you can keep listening to the podcast, but type in woodworksonwheels.com. And exactly what Mark just mentioned, he has a time, a wonderful little video of the time lapse of his building exactly that at the suggestion of a neighbor of his that said, Hey, you're doing something really neat and special here. You're gonna want a document. So there's just the neatest video. And I gotta ask you, Mark, what inspired you to do this? You're are you a woodworker by trade? Did you race NASCAR automobiles? How did it come to be?

Meet Mark And The NASCAR Hauler

Mark 7:06

None of the above, actually. Woodworking is a hobby that was in my the basement of the home growing up. My father was a NASA engineer, an aerospace engineer, and he tinkered in a wood shop as a hobby, and he let me use all of his tools. So woodworking is a hobby. As a career, it's colorful. I've I've been in the travel business, I spent decades in the pharmaceutical industry, and then when I decided to retire, I wanted to return to that hobby of woodworking. And so they I learned it in high school, I did it at home. They've taken it out of most of the schools, woodworking. So I thought since I learned it as a kid, maybe I could bring it back to the kids. And I didn't really want to do it in a building. I thought that was a little boring, and I wasn't ready to tackle the school system and put it back in the school system. So I thought, why not put it on wheels? And so I bought a NASCAR auto hauler and I I built it out. It took about three months, three or four months, and it's beautiful inside. You'll have to come have a look. But I take six kids at once and we build anything they'd like to build. It's just great in here, and it is on wheels, and I trailer it anywhere it needs to go.

Christian 8:32

And it's you got to go to his website and see the video. It shows him building this entire project from the ground up. But the children, each child has their own little on the workplace. So they're in the middle of the room.

Mark 8:45

Each kid gets their own station and the toolboxes, it's a little hard to see because they're put away, but you know, they're underneath there. There's five of them if you can see them.

Christian 8:55

Yeah, you've done real well. Shoehorn. How long did you say it was? Was it 20 or 25 feet? This is 24. Yeah, ton of space. Ton of space. So, yeah, go ahead. All right, and the one thing that you tease just a little bit, perfect segue, is the you said there was a racetrack inside the car, not not really a nod to the NASCAR theme, has to do with the Pinewood Derby. And the Pinewood Derby inspired event that Mark helped children build little cars to. And I I have three sons, and so they were in the scouts, and we raced uh the Pinewood Derby. But could you tell us just a little bit before we kind of go back in time and talk about the cars of your youth, Mark? Could you could you speak a little bit about how that event inspired you to help the kids make cars? And and you made a track, and could you walk us through that?

Mark 9:56

Sure. Uh I've been doing some work with a group in Easton, Maryland called the Academy Art Museum. They have their own kids program. They asked me to help them out conceiving of some activities for the kids. And I suggested that we bring the racetrack, which I have for wooden cars. And we built wooden cars and we raced them, and they loved it. And they had they had an event for showcasing Bugatti cars in the museum. Oh, wow. Beautiful. And they asked me, would I do something that would coincide with the Bugatti event? And I said, of course, why don't we shrink the Bugattis and race them down a Pinewood Derby track?

Christian 10:45

Love it.

Building A Kids’ Woodshop On Wheels

Mark 10:45

Love it. And they loved it. They weren't quite sure what it all meant, but we pulled it off, and the kids loved it, the parents loved it, and in the in the it was just great. So I hope that gives you a summary of of what happened.

Christian 11:04

And that that is so wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Mark 11:08

I have the I have the pictures of it. Do you want to see the cars?

Christian 11:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Real quick, real quick. And while you're yeah, yeah, while you're doing that square. Now, there's all the cars. 3D printed. Now 3D printed Bugattis. Yeah, you're not able to do that. Now we were chatting with Mark a little bit before the show, and boy, were did these memories start flooding back because I built several Pinewood Derby cars myself. And if you're not, and I had to run in my son's bedroom, I have two boxes and I try and be organized. They each they say Pinewood Derby, right? And that's how I know I was able to put my hands on him quickly. And so what we do is if you're not familiar, little Cub Scouts, before they become Boy Scouts, which happens in middle school, Cub Scouts, you get this wooden blank, and then you mill it into a car. And there's uh Mark was saying it's a racetrack, and it's this, you know, depending upon how long it's a four. There he is, he's showing it right there. Doug, we're gonna have per wonderful video to share here. Look, so that's the blank. Exactly. The slots are the slots on the bottom, except the nails, which uh act as the axles. And enough geeking out the Pinewood Derby, and we've got to we have to step in the time machine and take Mark way back, two weeks back. Yeah, let's talk about your first car, Mark. What was it? How'd you get it?

Mark 12:34

What happened to it? First car, the first car that I owned, or that my my dad, you know, was kind enough to to gift me.

Doug 12:45

I would say the one your dad was kind enough to gift to you, right? That's yeah, let's go.

Mark 12:50

Let's let's go with that. My my father went went to the dump and got a car from the dump, and he took it to the the high school auto mechanics class and told them, I believe he bought the car for $35. And it was a 1963 Mercury Comet Capri with three on the column. Three on the tree. Three on the tree. Yep, yep. So do you know the car?

Doug 13:23

You know, I was looking it up beforehand, and it is very closely related to an Edsel. I don't know if you knew that.

Mark 13:32

It is, it's not the prettiest car, no, uh, which might have been why it was in the dump, but he bought it for 35 bucks, took it to the auto mechanics class. Now remember, this is the mid-70s, and he told them to get it running and he would buy it back. And he did, I don't know whether it was a hundred dollars or something like that. And that's the car he gave to me. It was road rash, rusty, and you know, it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world. Somebody's walking along. Here we go. And it didn't, they couldn't get the starter pin to work, so it it would take a paper clip to start the car.

Christian 14:19

I've never heard that. That's a bolts.

Pinewood Derby Meets Bugatti

Mark 14:23

Yeah, and and the car, you know, the car was just fabulous, it didn't have power or anything, big benches, and you had to turn the wheel a hundred times to go left or right. And it was just a great, great starting car, but it was it was hitting and then a friend of mine crashed it, and that was the end of it.

Christian 14:45

Oh man.

Mark 14:47

That's what happens to a lot of these cars, you know. A friend of yours crashes it. Never you.

Doug 14:53

Yeah, first, first cars, yep, absolutely. So was your dad trying to teach you anything by buying the car from the junkyard? I mean, your dad was very smart to take it to the auto shop, but was he trying to inspire something with you that you that you can think of?

Mark 15:11

Maybe he knew we were gonna crash it because he he made us repair it before we then sold it again. So we learned all about how to tie rods. I remember I'd never heard of a tie rod before, and we had to we had to do quite a bit of repairs and crawling underneath it. So maybe he knew it was an old junky car and we were gonna learn how to fix cars. Yeah, something was gonna happen to it. And well, not something, something happened to it every day. It was adventures, no end to the adventures like that. Yeah, what I do remember fondly about it though is that when when we had a little fender bender, literally, we couldn't find another fender, and so we just drove around without it. And all through high school and I I drove around all through high school with it, you know, missing a right front fender.

Doug 16:19

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually I as long as it has the lights, it's legal. I think. Is that is that true today? I don't know. I've seen people driving around without fenders and without hoods. I don't know. I think it just depends.

Mark 16:42

Maybe he was trying to teach me something, but he certainly did not go out and buy me a BMW for my birthday. We, you know, we got a beater car from the dump.

Doug 16:53

Yeah, and then he gave it back to the high school class once you fixed it to a certain point, right?

Mark 16:59

Well, he bought it he he bought it from the from the high school, gave it to me, and then we crashed it a couple times, and then we sold it. So I don't think it ever made it back to the high school. Okay.

Doug 17:20

And so what what was the replacement for that car, Mark?

Hands-On Learning And STEM Joy

Mark 17:33

Because I was thinking about this podcast. And and the car came in, then I just had to have it. So I bought the car instead of selling it to the public. And it was a nineteen sixty four Buick Electra two twenty-five.

Doug 18:04

Yeah.

Mark 18:06

You know that car too. That was a big car, right? It was twenty one and a half feet long. It had an eight eight-cylinder 455 in it. And that's yeah, the deuce and a quarter, right? That's the deuce and a quarter. 225, yeah, with they were sort of fins, but yes, it was a a really, really big car.

Doug 18:31

Yep. Intended to be a luxury car, right?

Mark 18:34

It will, it was a luxury car. It had you know beautifully embroidered bench seats and you know, a stunning dashboard, and it was super quiet and probably a smooth ride, right? Totally a smooth ride. It was I loved it, and I bought it for 500 bucks, and I drove it for a couple of years and loved it. And we used to call it the mantis because it looked kind of like a prey mantis. But and then I oh, I know what it was. I I I moved into Washington, DC when I was going to school, and I I just couldn't park it. And I I I sold it for 500 bucks.

Christian 19:17

And so that you said it was green. Was it kind of that really light metallic green that they just they just don't do anymore? Dark metallic. Dark metallic, I see.

Mark 19:29

Oh, I don't think it was metallic. No, definitely metallic. Had had a light green, kind of a sea foam green interior, but a dark metallic exterior.

Christian 19:40

That seems so unique. That sounds beautiful. Sorry, Doug, you were saying something. I just wanted to hope. I loved it. I'm I'm I'm beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah.

Mark 19:51

You know, the the the other one, the Comet Capri, you know, not so much, but I uh the Buick Electra 225, it was a 1965. And it would be in a show today because it it was really it was great. I never thought I'd miss I'd miss a car, but that that one I missed.

First Cars: Comet To Electra 225

Doug 20:10

Yeah, and probably preparing for this podcast took you back to the car, right?

Mark 20:16

Thank you for saying that. I was going down memory lane. I mean, I'll I'll rattle off a few that I might have missed. I I had a dot I had a dodge dart that had push wow a push button transmission. Push button automatic, yeah. Yeah, it was kind of on the left-hand side, like look elevator buttons or something. Yeah. Uh let's see what else I had. My parents had a VW bug, which was in 19 in the 1960s, and that they used until the floorboards rusted out completely. They had a Rambler station wagon with the wooden the wooden panels on the side. Oh yeah. Nash Rambler.

Christian 20:58

You don't see those much anymore.

Mark 21:00

No, you you don't. You don't. What I was gonna say, I was I wasn't sure that I was a car person, and then I when I thought about this podcast, as a little kid, I raced HO scale cars. You're familiar with those. And then my older brother somehow got to race slot cars.

Christian 21:24

I loved those. I loved my set. I still have a car floating around here somewhere from my slot racing set. Yeah.

Mark 21:33

Little tiny HO set. It was like a darn oval that just went around, round, round, round. But you know, we were so hooked on the darn thing that we'd save up every penny we had and be buy straightaway pieces and keep connecting them until we could send a drag strip across the whole basement floor with those one-inch HO cars. And yep, it's again like you say the turn on in that video of the kids making a wooden car and racing it. When you're that little and you're racing a car that's an inch long, it doesn't matter. Your imagination just goes to this place. And when you're participating with those kids as an as an adult, whether it's a wooden car or an ho car, a slot car or a pinewood derby car or a soapbox derby car, anything but a real car. If you meet those little kids where they are, which is to them, that car is real. And they're it's like the wizard of oz to them. And it's if you get your head around that, your experience working with those kids in little cars will be fabulous.

Christian 22:49

That's that's such a lovely point, such a good point. Nowadays, kids can be so obsessed with what what they see on a screen. It's like the world comes to them, and I get that. There's a time and place for that. But yes, to make something with your hands and hold this thing in your hand, that is always a good feeling. That's always been a good feeling. But with the kids of today, there's something a little extra to that tactile. It's in my hands and not on a screen. Go ahead, Doug. You were gonna hop in. No, no, I'm totally with you.

Mark 23:22

Well, it's it's more than beyond a feel-good thing. I mean, there's a reason they use this stuff for for STEM science, and you know, it's it's got all you know, it's gravity, it's friction, it's physics, it's it's there's team building, there's all kinds of it's it's a metaphor in life if you build a Pinewood Derby car with your kid.

Doug 23:44

Well said. Wow. I agreed. So what what we know you love that Buick, but what would be your dream car besides that Buick if you could have it back?

Mark 23:56

W one that I lost or one I never got? Uh how about one you one you never got? I'm gonna get it. It's that it's it's I was gonna say it's the Bugatti, but no thanks. I I yeah, I wouldn't turn it at down, but as a as a dream car to tool around in, it's a Triumph TR3.

Doug 24:23

Okay. Yeah, I think James McCrae is restoring one of those in Easton for one of his customers.

Mark 24:31

I think I might have seen it. Is it like Hunter Racing Green? I I'm not sure what it is. It might be where it is. It might be now. It was primer last time I saw. Ah, okay. Well, the the Triumph TR3s and TR4s, I like the threes with the little scoop on the front. They're very small. They're they're just they're tiny.

Christian 24:53

Yep.

Mark 24:53

But I think they're just I just think they're cool looking.

Christian 24:58

Absolutely.

Slot Cars, HO Tracks, And Imagination

Mark 24:59

And that would be my dream little little toy sports car. I don't own a sports car. Frankly, like I said, I never saw myself as a tar car guy. I got a 20-year-old pickup sitting in the driveway, and you know, I'm not I have no car collection. My car collection are made of wood and they're three inches long on my desk. I don't, I don't have a garage full of cars. But I soon will. I am gonna sponsor a team, a racing team, for the real soapbox derbies, and we're gonna take some kids that are that otherwise would never have a chance to do something like this, and we're gonna train them to race, and we're gonna build the cars, and we're gonna we're gonna win in Federalsburg on the Eastern Shore, and we're gonna and then it's on to Akron where we'll win there. Can't wait to hear about it. We're gonna have to do that. You heard you heard it here. You heard it here.

Christian 25:53

You're you're on the record, so now you gotta back it up. That was my have you back once it happens. Yeah, that was my bruth call right there. Call your shot. Call that shot. Sounds like a winner. So, all right, we're getting close to time here, and as we guide the podcast gently to the off-ramp, got two last questions for you, Mark. Number one, why is your least favorite car a the Brown Dodge 1974 van? I know you had some great times in it, some not so great times. We don't have time to get into the legend of and I'm sure you took road trips in that car, and it made me think of, you know, when I took my kids in, you know, on road trips there. But what strike when I say uh Brown Dodge 1974 van, just what what's the first thing that comes to mind? What strikes you?

Mark 26:43

As the as the good in the van? Yes.

Christian 26:45

Uh oh, okay, sure.

Mark 26:48

Yeah, no, no, uh, there were no there were no no bad times in that van. Okay, it was there. It was fabulous. And I I'd take it back tomorrow. But I did share that van with with three siblings, all you know, teenage young drivers. And the van took a hit every couple of weeks, and it had a very colorful life. But you know, eventually we had to start popping the engine cover off of it and spraying ether down into the carburetor so it would start. And those are those are sort of fond memories to me that it finally you know gave it up and it was so beat up and and hit so many times, and we hit so many things in it. And but we went on a lot of road trips and skied in it, and my friends to this day, you know, say, Oh, remember the van? You know, we just called it the van.

Christian 27:40

The van. Yeah, yeah, got it.

Mark 27:42

Uh, and you know, to be a high school senior and to be able to show up, you know, at your high school parking lot with your license, you know, although I didn't own it, you were still in a van, you know, and that was just the 70s.

Christian 27:58

Yeah, I got it.

Speaker 27:59

A lot of people in that van.

Dream Machines And Soapbox Plans

Christian 28:01

Yeah. Very popular. And and and Doug says all the time, Doug says all the time that the show is about family, you know, and a lot of times these these metal machines are just vectors for the stories of our lives, the people that have come and gone in them. So, yeah, that that's a great answer to that question. On the way out, last question here for you. We we asked, are there any causes that are important to you that we can share? And you wrote something I thought really interesting. You wrote support the arts, trades, and make them available to everyone. There's a little bit of a callback. What you were talking about, your mission to bring woodworking to the children. What else strikes you about that, about that statement?

Mark 28:45

So it's supporting the arts and the trades. I think arts and trades, arts, you know, many trades are art and and and they're such a good point. Such a good point. But I I would say that as a young kid, I was turned on to woodworking. And my dad, although he was a NASA engineer, he enjoyed, you know, making marionette puppets and little wooden race cars. And so interesting. You know, it's beyond your profession. It's it's it's a hobby, like anything.

Christian 29:22

So and your your question again was No, I I I just how you I I think it's very interesting how you how you brought them together. Like you, you as a young person were in high school, and you know, you took this shop class, this woodworking class, and then, but I thought you now now I see where you're going.

The Brown ’74 Dodge Van Stories

Mark 29:42

So, yes, so as a little kid, I loved I loved watching my father tinker in a wood shop. I signed up for wood shop classes in high school. It was my favorite thing to do. And although although I didn't do it as a profession later on in life, I'm not a carpenter, you know. I consider myself a skilled woodworker, but I'm self-trained to some degree. And it I just saw it as an art and certainly a trade that is not necessarily gone, but it's on it's disappearing, and it's more difficult to find. And so, woodworking as a class, uh, you could either take, I guess, shop, or you could take home economics and learn how to bake or sew or type. I took both, I think. But those those are gone, and yeah, they're replaced for the most part with tech. And tech is not a bad thing, it's just replaced, you know, the woodworking is gone. And so certain, I guess you'd say certain maybe charter schools or private schools, they've they've put maker spaces back in and they've done a really good job of it. But for the large part, the public school system, it's gone. And when I retired from my career in pharmaceuticals, if it to bring that hobby back and bring it the joy that I had. And in the process, I've learned I've learned that if you want to fix something in your house or you want to do an addition or you want to build something or put something together, it's something I don't even think twice about. I just go do it because it's second nature. I watch other people struggle and they kind of, you know, okay, who do I call? Kind of thing, and uh, or they look frustrated with it, they don't have the right tool or the skill or both. And yeah, so when I see people that are really good at something, they might have learned it as a kid, like I did, they might have gone to a trade school and learned it, but they're not all in tech, and they're not all working in whatever, you know, they're not all doctors and lawyers, and and the truth is they're the guy that fixes your sink, and you know, you call, yeah, you call in the middle of the night, yeah, when something's leaking for sure. My thing, and so I have a real appreciation for the trades, as you say, and the arts, because I think a trade is an art done well, a lot of intersection. There's a lot of intersection, and great answer. Frankly, there we could use we could use a lot of it, and if you can spark it in a little kid through a pine wood derby car, it doesn't matter how it happens, it certainly happens doing it through that process, as you know.

Why Arts And Trades Still Matter

Christian 32:40

Great answer. Yeah, bring it on. Great answer. And you know, that's couldn't say it any better with his mission right now. Woodworksonwheels.com. Check it out. It's gonna put a smile on your face, just the way it put a smile on my face. Mark, it's been wonderful to meet you. We had there it is gliding across the screen, another video moment for sure. Mark, it was fantastic to meet you. Thank you for making the time today. Doug and I really enjoyed a little bit of time in your schedule. Thank thank you for having me both. Fantastic. And we're gonna have you back. That was to all the cars I've loved. Before you've just heard the high rebbing, low mileage, late model, heard around the world authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. He's Doug. Reach him at Doug at Carslove.com. I'm Christian. Reach me at Christian at Carslove.com. Hey, and he was Mark. What else can you say? Woodworks on wheels.com. If you like the show, feel free to tell your friends forward, that helps us grow. Please follow, tell a friend. Check us out at carslove.com. I'm sure we'll see you at the next local car show, show room, race trip, or concourse. And we appreciate you listening. We'll see you next time.