Tom's McLean Service

Tom's McLean Service
Interior of White House, Ground Floor Repair Shop
July 22, 1990

    Around 1989, I relocated my work bench from the main building, and moved into the white house to work on push mowers with John Saunders. As I recall, this was because Frank Kulesa Jr., who was the other push-mower mechanic, had left to take a new job. John had a real nice set up in the white house, which included a mini-parts room in the closet, a Steam Jenny for washing mowers out front, a full-size refrigerator and a micro-convection oven. Best of all was a used window air conditioner which he had mounted right next to his bench. I set up my tools just across the room, having removed the old reel mower sharpening machine, which was no longer being used. I found my own used air conditioner, and between them we had the coolest spot in town. It was the first time I had ever worked in shop with air conditioning. I had a terrific "corner office" with two windows providing lots of light and a great view of Elm street and the Post Office. The old Holly tree outside the door provided ample shade in the summertime. We named our work area "Suite 101", which was on the front door.

    Bruce Taylor (chain saws) and Rodney Corner (riding mowers) worked below us in the cellar. Bruce lived in the apartment on the upper floor at that time. Once, he hastily exited out a back window when he saw my car pull into the lot, a 1986 Chevy Caprice that used to belong to the Stafford County Sheriffs Office. The brown sedan looked exactly like those of Fairfax County. Bruce came back a few minutes later, cursing me, but we all had a good chuckle over that one. Down in the main building, Tom Corner was working the front counter, and I can't recall who was helping him at the time....perhaps Danny Palmisani, who also did pick-ups and deliveries.

    Someone had strung a telephone line from the main building up to the house, so we had phone service. The front counter guys handled the incoming calls, so we turned off the ringer on our phone. I came up with an intercom system, which consisted of a 9-volt Radio Shack "buzz box" next to our phone, which was connected by another line to a button at the front counter. If the counter men needed to talk to the mechanics, they could pick up the phone receiver and "buzz" the house, which was our signal to pick up the extension. This saved them a trek across the yard if they were checking the status of our repair jobs.

    The photos that follow were taken on a Sunday, following what I thought would be my last day working at Tom's. I had taken a job with a trucking company in Manasass, and I was packing up my toolboxes. However, I would in fact be coming back after all, and in the not too distant future.

View of the main floor shop, as viewed from the alley behind Animal General Hospital. Note the twin window AC units, and a lawn mower deck used as a trash can carrier! You can see our phone line going into the house at left.

"Suite 101, Employees Only"

Shop interior, Northeast corner. Behind the black tarp, you can barely see some boxes containing new mowers being stored on the back porch. John put up the blue tarp to wall-off the east side and maximize the air conditioning. The yellow Steam Jenny was rolled inside every night. John's kitchen setup was gone by this time, as he was in college, but he still worked here during summer break.

West side view; The closet had all the parts needed to tune up Briggs, Tecumseh and Lawn-Boy engines, including a gasket board. Behind the black tarp was the staircase leading to the bathroom and the apartment.

East side view; John's toolbox and workbench, with air conditioner blowing right at him. I called this the "Johnny Carson" setup, since he used an old desk as his bench. The front door is just to the right of the graffiti. The blue tarp hung where an interior wall used to be. That area was once the "recon showroom" in the early 1980s.

My bench was on the south wall, across from John. My toolbox was on the west wall next to one of the windows. My workbench had a hole cut in the middle, connected to a drain line that dumped directly into the waste oil tank. That way, I could change oil on lawn mowers right on the bench, using a special funnel.

Here's my Snap-On KRA59 "Coke Machine" box. I replaced this in 1995, but still own the center section and the wall-mounted puller set. You can see the green wall phone, and to its right is the "buzz box" intercom alarm. On the wall is humorous lawn mower troubleshooting chart created by Bill Padgett, who was then working at Vienna Lawnmower and a frequent visitor.

South west corner; The curtain under the air conditioner was to hide my toolbox from view. The box was chained to floor, and I rounded off the bolts to prevent easy removal. In reality, anyone could have easily broken in and stolen from us, but luckily it never happened.

South wall; The iron pipe was a protective conduit that I added later for my air conditioner power cord. This was due to the fact that I had once shorted the exposed Romex cable when a mower fell off its jack stand!

Breaking down the boxes, revealing the former kitchen window on the west wall.

In this view, you can see the drain line from where the kitchen sink once was.

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7/18/2021 (revised 05/31/26)