He looked at Frank.
“How much?”
“Thought you paid by the piece.”
“That was before I knew better.”
Frank laughed loudly.
“Kid learned.”
They negotiated by weight for the common plates and individually for several useful numbers.
Frank shook his head after loading the money into his pocket.
“Funny thing.”
“What?”
“I was standing there when you bought the first pile.”
“I remember.”
“Thought you were an idiot.”
“You said so.”
“I was wrong.”
Ethan smiled.
“Not completely.”
Frank looked confused.
“It could have been a terrible purchase.”
“You knew something.”
“No.”
Ethan shook his head.
“I suspected something.”
“That’s different.”
Frank seemed to appreciate that answer.
Ethan graduated high school in spring 1992.
By then, everyone assumed he would become a full-time mechanic.
He did.
But he also enrolled in evening courses at a nearby technical college.
Raymond encouraged it.
“You know old equipment.”
“Learn new equipment.”
“Otherwise one day you become one of the obsolete parts.”
Ethan worked days.
Attended classes.
Managed plate orders at night.
The index-card system expanded until one wooden box became four.
He eventually bought used metal filing drawers from an office liquidation.
Raymond hated them.
“Looks like a government building.”
“They don’t catch fire.”
“You planning a fire?”
“No.”
“Then the wood worked.”
Technology slowly changed.
Fax machines became more common.
Farmers could send parts diagrams faster.
Ethan bought a fax machine before Raymond thought the shop needed one.
The first week, it received three advertisements and one unreadable page.
Raymond pointed.
“Excellent investment.”
A month later, a dealer faxed a plate drawing from two states away.
Ethan identified it in minutes.
Raymond stopped complaining.
Then Ethan bought a used computer.
That caused a larger argument.
Raymond stood in front of the beige machine as if Ethan had brought livestock into the office.
“What does that do the cards don’t?”
“Search faster.”
“The cards already search.”
“No, I search.”
“Same thing.”
Ethan began entering inventory manually.
Casting number after casting number.
Manufacturer.
Application.
Quantity.
Location.
The process took months.
The first database was ugly.
It crashed.
Ethan lost three days of entries because he had not understood backups.
Raymond did not say “I told you so.”
He did not need to.
His face said enough.
Ethan learned backups.
The index cards stayed.
For years, he maintained both systems.
Old farmers trusted cards.
Young Ethan trusted neither system enough to abandon redundancy.
The planter-plate collection led to other parts.
Seed gates.
Sprockets.
Planter bottoms.
Meter components.
Drive gears.
Scrapers.
Bushings.
Small obsolete parts too unimportant for large manufacturers but critical to someone maintaining old machinery.
Ethan learned restraint.
He refused many things.
A barn full of random tractor parts tempted him once.
He spent a day inspecting it.