Shakespeare Truck Center; near Stratford, Ontario

Through some twist in the continuum, time temporarily askew on old Avon’s banks, young William was shunted several centuries and dozens of meridians in our direction. Farm-raised (he and one particular Holstein bonding with such intensity as to draw unwanted attention to the boy) our Will was not particularly well-lettered — as his Grade 6 English teacher’s comment (“Unpromising”) will attest. He was, however, a genius with gears and gasoline, and could clean a carburetor with nothing more than a splayed toothbrush and some spit. At harvest time he provided invaluable assistance to his “Pa,” who deeded him (in 1969) this half-acre lot alongside Highway 7. On Friday evenings our Billie-Bob (his customers prefering the informal mode of speech) could usually be found at the Queen’s Inn pub where, with a pitcher or two behind his belt, he would invariably rail — in perfect iambic pentameter — against the rising price of gas.