Idle American: Tool pusher and the tooth puller

It’s no longer likely that many sons and daughters will enter their parents’ professions.

There are exceptions, of course. Seventy-six-year-old Harold Barton is one, son of the late Sonny Barton, who opened his downtown Fort Worth business in 1949, then re-located Barton’s Garage in 1963 to its current location.

It could hardly be more obscure - 1615 West Jefferson - but the shop backs up to the more-visible dental practice of Dr. Marshall Brown, who has been serving patients at 1818 Eighth Ave. since 2000.

Their back doors are so close, they could almost share hinges.

They’ve become fast friends. Marshall is Harold’s dentist; he’s Marshall’s mechanic, but with a proviso.

If it’s a “computer job,” Harold has long since drawn the line. He has little truck for technical doodads embedded in most late-model vehicles.

He has no plans to buy expensive new tools, and why should he? Barton stays busy, working at his own pace. When prospective customers whose cars have computers that are chirping - or failing to chirp - drop by, he sends them on their way.

Their friendship dates back to 2000. With back doors so close, each can retreat to the other’s digs at break time. Frequently, there are moments between patients in Dr. Brown’s dental chair or bolts won’t budge in Barton’s garage the principals respond to the beckoning of changes of scenes.

In those rare times when they’re present in the same place at the same time, Harold is getting his teeth fixed or Marshall is holding a wrench.

Assuredly, each leaves footprints on next-door premises on an almost daily basis.

Harold has reached the age that health issues sometime intervene. For example, he’s on a therapy regimen now. That’s why he has a modified work schedule that allows his giving attention to health issues instead of opening the shop.

This brings to mind the late radio comedians, Lum and Abner. They were featured for more than two decades as operators of their "Jot’em Down Store" in Grinder’s Switch, Arkansas. Their show was featured for six more years on TV. (Think of an only slightly more “organized” setting than Sanford and Son, a more recent television sit-com.)

The longstanding policy of Lum and Abner? "Open when we get here; closed when we leave.”

Word of mouth from satisfied customers over the years has sustained Harold and his dad before him.

“I don’t think we’ve ever spent a dollar on advertising,” Harold laughed. “But Dad did have a slogan that I remember from childhood, and often hear it quoted now by long-time customers: ‘We can fix anything from a broken heart to the break of day.’” If Harold ever chose to advertise, he might dust off

the old 1988 Oldsmobile ad, hopeful to encourage young people. Remember “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile?”

You may recall that the ad didn’t work.

It’s never too late for me to meet new friends, and Harold is one. My friendship with Marshall, however, goes back more than 20 years. We’re both sports-minded, but he’s the one wearing orange scrubs to work. He’s a tea sipper through and through, often finding the time to attend when big

games beckon.

Hey, I might be able to do the two-birds-in-one-shot thing. My car is six years old, and my teeth are 82 years older than my ride. If my automotive and dental needs occur at the same time - and they might - I’ll drop off my car for service, then go through the back doors to Dr. Brown’s dental chair. How lucky would that be?

Just don’t expect me to pick up a bolt that has rolled away, but understand that upon reaching Marshall’s office, conversations will soon veer from far afield - sometimes without notice - to University of Texas football (pun intended). On my last visit, he was yakking about a long-ago game,

contending vehemently that the Horns should have gone for two.

Dr. Newbury, longtime president of Howard Payne University, lives in the Metroplex with Brenda, his wife of 60 years. Email: newbury@speakerdoc.com. Phone: 817-447-3872.