LB Shepherd's Auto Parts

I married into a 1983 Camaro with T-Tops and a crappy electrical system. This car was the calling card that led to me knowing Gary Royster and LB Shepherd. Gary ran a little auto repair business out of a rather large garage behind his house. Gary was an excellent mechanic and serviced most of the people’s cars around Morgan City when they needed work. He usually had four or five cars in the garage and several more parked beside his driveway that were waiting on him to get to them. He was a distant cousin to my new bride as he had somehow married into the same rather extended clan as well. I was to learn right after I met her that most of Morgan City, Lacey’s Springs, and Union Grove was at least partially kin to this same clan. I could never keep up with how but we were always running into someone I had never met that was a distant cousin of hers.

As her car was often in need of service, I got to know Gary pretty well over the next couple of years. I could work on my own vehicles with enough expertise to fix basic problems but I also came to depend on Gary for keeping my own vehicles running when I couldn’t figure out that problem myself. Gary was rather small and trim, maybe 5’6” or so with very dark eyes and eyebrows under reddish blonde hair. He always had a greasy cap on his head and usually had a pair of blue coveralls on that were more or less covered in dirt and grease. He walked quickly with a kind of natural athletic grace to his step. Whatever quickness there was to Gary in his physical movements, he offset this with the slow deliberateness of his conversation. He always seemed to take a very long time to respond to any question; as if he were turning it over and over in his mind to find the best handle to grab it by before he even considered answering the question. There was ALWAYS a long pause between questions and answers, no matter what kind of question; even if it was just to ask him how he was doing. It wasn’t that he was slow witted, he was just very careful how he handled conversation.

He kept an ever-present rag in his pocket that always came out to wipe his hands on before he did anything. I can still see it appearing almost magically in his hand every time he set a tool down or started into any sort of activity out from under a car hood. His hands were small and square with the promise of the confidence he had whenever anything mechanical came into his immediate possession. I got to know Gary pretty well in the next few years as the Camaro was a poorly designed piece of engineering that we continually threw money at to keep running.

LB Shepherd was a good friend of Gary's and to say he was a character is putting it mildly. He ran a little auto parts store right beside his house on the outskirts of Morgan City. It was on the right side of Highway 231 where the Union Grove Road split off of to go to Scant City. LB was in his early sixties when I met him and had been running that auto parts store for many years then. It was very small and packed full of parts of every kind. When you walked in the front door you wondered how anyone could find anything in that mess but LB knew right where everything was and he usually immediately knew if he had the part you needed once he had it “isolated”. LB was big on isolation of problems. I think that was his favorite thing in the world really, as he was always a little disappointed if you came in the door knowing what part you needed. He wanted to help you “isolate” the problem.

If he couldn’t “isolate” the problem he would pick up the phone and call Gary Royster to get his help. It was kind of like having an expert on speed dial. The problem was that they usually disagreed at first. LB would often figure out what he thought the issue was but call Gary to confirm his suspicion. This was fine if Gary agreed but when he didn’t agree it could get complicated and take a while with them “discussing” over the phone.

A typical “isolation” issue with LB would involve someone coming in the store with a car issue of one kind or another. LB’s front door had one of those little bells on the top of it that rang whenever someone opened the door. No matter what else was going on this bell ringing was quickly followed by LB dropping whatever he was doing to assure the potential customer that he would “Be with him directly.”

“Directly” wasn’t a specific measure of time as much as it was an expression of intent. In other words, LB intended on helping them as soon as whatever present issue he was battling with was taken care of. Whenever this was accomplished, whether it was stocking the coke machine with bottles or helping another customer LB would smile directly at the customer and say “What can I help you with?”

LB was around 5’4” tall and probably very nearly was wide as he was tall. He carried a little bit of a belly but he was mostly just wide. He always wore green work pants and rubber soled black shoes with the thin little laces n them. He usually had on a clean little windbreaker jacket and a collared, thin-cotton plaid shirt under it He had thinning slicked back hair, a rather large and prominent nose and friendly light colored eyes that seemed to be either laughing or getting ready to laugh all the time. He gave the impression of someone who thought everything was funny and for the most part I think that was true with the possible exception of when he was trying to “isolate” a problem.

He also talked with an accent that was pure Morgan City. If there was any doubt where he was from it was only from people who didn’t know what a Morgan City accent sounded like. He moved quickly like he was always in a hurry and kept a whole counter full of those old auto parts books that only exist in computer hard drives today. The books were on a raised metal platform and seemed to have thousands of pages crammed together into each book that measured some 24 inches across. LB had worn the pages thin thumbing through them referencing parts to models and makes but he knew them so well it never took him long to find the correct page once he had “isolated” the problem.

A typical “isolation” issue would start out as follows:

Customer- I got a 74 Ford Galaxy with a V8 in it. It’s missing a little bit when I start up a hill.

LB- “302 Windsor?”

Customer- “Yes”

LB- “What kind of a miss is it?”

Customer- “Well…. it just stutters when I mash the gas pedal sometimes, usually on a hill. “

LB-“What you done to it so far?”

Customer- “I checked the plugs and plug wires but I’m not sure if it’s electrical or a fuel issue.”

LB- “Where you get your gas?”

Customer- “Always the same place. I run the same gas in my truck too so I don’t think it’s bad.”

LB- “OK…. What’s she sound like?”

This is where the conversation would start to get surreal. LB put great store in what things sound like. He was always concerned about vacuum leaks on carburetors. I think he had been stumped bad on a vacuum leak one time and had never gotten over it. He was forever suspicious of vacuum leaks after that. If you were a regular customer you knew to be prepared to mimic the sound that the car made when the problem occurred. If you weren’t, you usually had to get him to repeat his question so you could compute why anyone would ask such a question.

LB- “Does it wheeze?”

This question would be followed by his best impression of a vacuum leak.

LB- “WHhhhhhhhh…..” with his lips pursed together while he sucked in air as loudly as he could.

Customer- “Uh… no, I didn’t hear anything like that?”

LB- “Well you are lucky then. Them little vacuum leaks can be the very devil himself to find”

LB- “Does she jerk and grunt real hard when she starts missing?”

This question would be followed by LB jerking his head up and down while he grunted violently “UNH, UNH, UNH”

LB-“Or is more like a soft little rounded off stutter?”

This question would be followed by a slow craning in and out of his neck, “Mm…Mm…. Mm”

Customer- (Assuming they weren’t standing there with their mouth open in distress from LB’s emphatic gyrations) “Well…. I think it’s closer to the second one.”

LB- Scratching his head as he thought about it for a second or two. “74 Galaxie Windsor. Good gas. Good plugs. No vacuum leaks that we know of. And, Mm…Mm…Mm on the hills.” As he repeated the slow craning in and out of his neck while he scratched his head and looked at the floor.

LB- “Well. I can’t be certain but I do believe I’ve got it isolated. Let me call someone; just to check my figuring.” He would say as he headed for the phone on the counter.

With this pronouncement he would walk to the phone and call Gary Royster. I have been a witness to both sides of this conversation. I have been in Gary’s shop when LB would call and I have been in LB’s shop when he would call Gary and it always amazed me that neither one of them thought anything out of the way about their conversations. Gary never seemed to mind LB calling and LB never said anything in the way of greeting when he did.

LB- “Man’s got a 74 Galaxie V8 that’s missing on hills. No WHHhhhhh that he can hear, good gas, and she doesn’t Unh, Unh, Unh; but something like this. Mm….Mm…Mm…. and she doesn’t do it all the time… Fuel filter? I’d say partially clogged.”

There was always a long pause then, on both sides of the line. Gary didn’t answer anything quick; especially if it had to do with troubleshooting a car problem. If Gary agreed with the “isolation” he would eventually say “could be”. “Could be” was a strong affirmation. There was also the longer pause and “Mebby”. “Mebby” meant maybe but not with a lot of conviction. Either of these would usually be followed by LB either saying thank you are going into some more clues to the riddle that he might have left off hoping for a “Could be” response.

What LB didn’t want to hear was the dreaded “Couldn’t say”. “Couldn’t say” was Gary speak for “I don’t think so but you do what you think is best.” I never knew of Gary saying LB was wrong or even suggesting something else that could be the issue but he may have done it when I wasn’t around. Usually when they didn’t agree as to the root cause, LB would simply keep making possible suggestions until he got a “Mebby” out of Gary. This could take a while, between LB’s mimicking of every possible car a sound could make and Gary’s long pauses while he considered things inside out.

All of this would play out in LB’s store whether he had one person waiting or 5 people waiting. He didn’t mind selling you a new belt or a set of spark plugs but he loved “isolating” problems. The truth is that he was pretty good at it too. He helped me out on more than one occasion by insisting that we “isolate” the problem before he sold me a part. If you were in a hurry you probably shouldn’t be in LB Shepherd’s Auto Parts to begin with.