By Gary Lee Stuber
Jim Dawson is a workaholic, and his Dawson’s Auto Repair Service garage is an icon, not only there, one dangerous curve away from Two-Run toward Maysel, but the whole of Clay County. He is the longest operating auto garage in the county ever since it was built there in 1992.
“I bought this bottom, this piece of land. Already there was a truss shop in here. Brett Legg had his truss shop here. It was as big as you see it now but it was all open. Just beams holding a roof up. He nearly got run over every time he tried to move one of those big trucks with trusses on it, so he moved to Bickmore. There was a frame up with a roof on it. All open. So I had a guy come in and lay all the block for me. I put in a concrete floor, put all the equipment in it,” said Dawson.
Jim was familiar with Bickmore. In 1984 he and his wife moved back into Clay and bought the grocery store J&S Grocery and his wife ran that while he rented the attached gas station from Doug Osborne. “We would come in about four or four-thirty and open as early as five. There would be a lot of coal miners outside on their way to work or coming from work and they would all want biscuits. My wife made a ton of biscuits in the mornings in her little deli. If they were going to work they would buy extras for later.”
He ran the gas station and did auto repairs next door. After he opened his garage there at Two-Run, he closed the gas station but his wife continued to run the little grocery until about ten years ago.
Jim was familiar with the work. He was born in 1942 to Robert Dawson who owned and operated a Gulf gas station and garage just up the road where GoMart is today and a Texico gas station in Ivydale.
“In the 1950’s he had a Texico station at Ivydale on this end of the bridge where the old car wash is today.” Even as a child, Jim was helping dad, getting his hands dirty. “He moved to Weston, we had a gas station there too.”
He grew up changing tires, doing mechanic work on everything, including ‘Hot rods.’ He graduated high school in 1960 and moved out to Virginia where he worked at, well, what else? A gas station.
In 1966 Jim married Mary Sue Mullins. They are still married. She has followed him everywhere. She still makes biscuits but now, only for Jim. Jim has four daughters, two of them live in Clay County at Maysel. Back in 1967 Jim moved out to Ohio and became an underground miner. Salt Miner, for Morton Salt Company. Nearly two miles under Lake Erie. Worked there for eighteen years operating heavy equipment.
“I retired in 1984, moved back to West Virginia, spent all my money. We bought the grocery story and rented the gas station. I wasn’t ready to retire.” Jim is still not ready to retire. He is 83 and works four days a week by himself, in the auto garage he owns.
“I love the work. As long as I feel healthy enough to keep doing this I will. I love to talk to people. Everybody is different.” To be sure, work is different now that it was ten or more years ago. He still does tires, inspection stickers, oil changes and some light mechanic work. He no longer does alignments even though he has the equipment. He doesn’t do muffler replacement, major engine or transmission work. And he takes Friday’s off to spend with that bride of his.
He has two lifts in two bays and on any given day both of them will be in the air. “Once upon a time there was three of us working in here. Two of them left to do this on their own.” And he explains why he is now working alone.
“It is hard to find people willing to work these days. Willing to work hard, and work right.”
Jim is old school, a generation that is vanishing. People who get up early, rain or shine, go out to work, and work hard and show pride in their work. For now, Jim has no plans to retire or sell out. “I only had one accident in all the years I’ve been here. I was doing an alignment and the vehicle dropped back and pinned me. I was off about four or five days. Mostly I have been lucky.” It probably isn’t luck, Jim, if you have ever watched him work is very safety conscious.
If you have light auto work to be done, Jim is the man to see. He has a great sense of humor and is friendly and loves to talk. But he is serious and thorough when it comes to his work. He is old school like that.
