Auto Repair - New Puzzle Sparks Memory of a New Life

by Elmer Prather, guest blogger and puzzle friend

My latest puzzle is a 500-piece titled Auto Repair by Gregg and Company. Cobble Hill Puzzle has many talented artists. One of them is Greg Giordano. This is the twenty fourth puzzle of his I have put together and it's a new one for 2024.

To spend time putting a puzzle together, I must have a connection to it. My connection to this puzzle is the similarity of the Auto Repair garage pictured in this puzzle to an old auto repair shop that an older friend of mine owned and used to work on cars when I was a teenager.

In the puzzle picture, is a 1954 Chevrolet with a beautiful patina parked in the garage. I once owned a 1953 Chevrolet that my friend helped me keep running. He worked in construction Monday through Friday and helped friends like me work on their cars on Saturdays.

This is a very interesting picture and as puzzlers, we all know that a picture tells a story. When I saw this picture, I wondered what happened to the owner of this garage and why the 1954 Chevrolet was left sitting in the garage. The picture also leaves you wondering why all the items like the old tires and equipment are left lying around the front and side of the garage. The garage owner must live close by because there is a Golden Retriever and two of her pups sitting in front of the garage looking as if they are waiting for their master to return.

My friend knew a lot about cars and could fix anything that had a gasoline engine. He once brought a tractor he drove on his job to his garage and rebuilt the engine. When he finished working on it, it ran like a new one.

My friend was working on someone’s car one Saturday and he had it raised off the ground with a jack so he could find the underlying cause of the engine problem. While he was under the car, the jack slipped, and the car fell on him. The owner of the car he was working on was there at the time and was able to pull him out from beneath the car and took him to the hospital where he recovered. He turned a tragic accident into something positive because my friend found religion that day while he was pinned under that car. When he recovered and was able to come home from the hospital, he quit drinking and started going to church every Sunday for the rest of his life. This was a life-changing incident that he never forgot. 

Elmer Prather
Canton, Georgia
U S A

Greg Giordano's "Auto Repair" 500 piece puzzle