Sarah Haas, Peak to Peak. On a cold and snowy day in January, I pull up to Nederland’s East Street Garage and am so glad to find a warm room inside, the familiar smells of gas and oil and steel rising up with the heat. Over the sounds of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising,” I can hear the clanking of tools on metal, the sound of the work being done by the guys hidden by the raised hoods of two vintage looking Fords. As it echoes off the walls, a part of me thinks this is how rock-n-roll was supposed to be heard—while men work on machines and tap their toes.

On account of the nasty weather, it’d been a slow week at the shop and so the crew, owner Terry Bergin, his son Matt as well as another mechanic, Steve, have taken the opportunity to get a little work done on their pet projects. Steve is tuning up Terry’s bright yellow Ford Ranger turned plow truck. Matt is tinkering on the engine of his early generation Ford Bronco (I’m beginning to think they have a thing for Fords). “Retro” he calls it, pausing from his work to admire it a bit and to snap a proud picture before his dad gets back from an errand.

Each of Terry’s two sons had a pet project, a car they bought used and dilapidated so that they could restore it, by their father’s side, to full glory. Matt’s older brother’s choice, a sporty old Mustang, is temporarily parked in Terry’s home garage in a rare instance of a thing that a kid leaves behind while he’s off to explore himself and the world that a parent doesn’t mind so much, especially in the middle of summer when driving along the Peak-to-Peak with the top down. Terry is also in temporary possession of Matt’s dog, Durban, a bulldog-shepherd mix who is more or less a fixture of the shop. But not today, a slow day when the guys will probably head home early.

Today is also a big day because the guys will finally start the engine that Matt built from scratch. Once upon a time, I was told that even a simpleton like me could find her way around the engine of a Bronco, but looking at one is all I need to tell you I could do no such thing. The engine—its innards twisting around this way and that—looks like a human heart with ventricles and atriums so complex I wouldn’t be surprised if they too could beat with emotion. Better to leave an engine like that to the surgeons.

I don’t use the metaphor lightly. In more ways than one Terry and his crew are like old-school doctors who provide personalized care—a parallel I draw while listening to Terry talk about what he does over a pizza and beer nearly a month later.

He hardly talks about the cars he works on except to say that he recognizes how much his customers depend on him because up here, cars are a lifeline. His job, he says, is to put safe and reliable cars out on the road, a responsibility he takes seriously and knows intimately. Intimately because Terry doesn’t just have customers, he has friends, which is not an accidental distinction. Just a three-man shop, Terry makes a point to offer rides to his customers so that even without a car they can get to where they need to go, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because he cares deeply, about both cars and people.

Of course, his personal approach to business has practical advantages. Terry has never once advertised, not in a paper or anywhere else, because he doesn’t need to, and not just because his sign is near the road and says he’ll fix your car for you. Terry’s customers come back, over and over again, all on their own. I actually found out about Terry from one such repeat customer, Catherine Monahan, who wrote in to say:

“Terry Bergin, owner and mechanic at East Street Garage, is a fixture in the Ned community (especially if you drive a domestic vehicle). Terry is smart, funny and hardworking. He’s also one of the kindest people I know. Helping people is in his nature, so much so that I don’t think he realizes what a difference he makes.”

She’s right about all of it, especially that Terry probably doesn’t know how much of a difference he makes. Terry keeps his distance from cell phones and social media and the internet although he admits to being aware, vaguely, of a thing called “Yelp” on which East Street Garage does have a lot of glowing reviews. He’s never looked at them though, he doesn’t need to, he already knows what people think because he refuses to make feedback a guessing game. Call him old-school, but he believes honesty should be a part of the conversation, a part of the job.

While he’s talking auto/life philosophies, a customer, Kip, comes up to the table as if by cue. He says he met Terry and Matt several years ago when he and his Red 1969 Lincoln were broken down in a parking lot in Boulder. Terry recognized the car (but not yet the guy) and, good Samaritan that he is, didn’t hesitate to offer a hand. Disparaged, Kip told Terry he’d thought of everything and couldn’t figure out what could possibly be wrong.

“The belts,” Terry said, taking one look at the engine.

“Impossible,” Kip replied while Terry reached down defiantly and grabbed the belts, pulling out two, both snapped in half.

Laughing, Kip finishes the story, saying Terry and Matt had the Lincoln fixed in 30 minutes, to which Terry gloats, “and now I have a customer (and a friend) for life.”

From the story I take it that Terry isn’t just a great guy, but a maestro, confirming what I’d seen for myself a month ago on that snowy and slow January morning back at the garage.

With Matt’s engine assembled and ready to test, the crew circles around, (although I, sheepishly, take a step back). Right away, the engine gets loud—belts whirling, thing-a-ma-bobs circling and pistons pistoning, smoke rising off the engine and curling into the air. Wordlessly, Terry motions and the guys instantly spring to action, attaching ducts to the exhaust pipe and opening the garage door to let out the fumes. Suddenly, a loud “bang.” I jump a foot, but the guys are unfazed. After the backfire, the engine quiets until everything is still. Slowly, the smoke clears.

Before turning to his son to have a few fatherly words, Terry reassures me the smoke and noise is what you’d expect from an engine on its very first run. Then, to Matt: “I told you to turn it clockwise. Did you do it?”

What exactly needed turning I have no idea, but Matt does, saying: “Yesterday you told me to turn it counterclockwise,” in a way that only a son can speak to a father. Unquestioningly, Terry says, “well that’s not what I meant. Turn it clockwise,” which Matt trustingly does, in a motion so small I can hardly tell a difference.

Adjustments having been made, they restart the engine. Everything sounds perceptibly smoother, the smoke builds and soon clears on its own, and Terry revs it ever so gently to mimic higher speeds, “exercising the engine,” which is working perfectly now. Purring almost. The maestro and his son have done it again.

A weekly column about locals living along the Peak-to-Peak. To suggest someone for a profile please email Sarah at mountainfolktales@gmail.com.

(Originally published in the March 7, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)