When the Republic-Times visited Earl and Kathy Fitch’s home near Maeystown, we thought it was to discuss hot rod cars.

Instead, as we sat in one of his large garages – the one with an automotive service lift that would do a dealership proud — we learned there’s a whole lot more to Earl than building hot rods.

He has farmed, and still does for neighbors. He accumulated three-plus decades of work in increasingly technical communication fields. And the wood-fired, heat exchanger equipped stove that heats his garage in winter?  He designed and built that, too.

But, back to the hot rods.  The crown jewel is the 1932 Ford he built for his wife, Kathy, for their 50th wedding anniversary. She hasn’t driven it yet, and that was five years ago.

This hot rod features five windows and a yellow paint job. Earl has chopped the top, and the original engine is long gone, replaced by a powerful V-8, 383-cubic inch Chevrolet stroker engine, driving through an automatic transmission. A brown leather interior and electric power windows are added features.

Next to it sits another yellow painted vehicle, this one with a beast of pickup with a 436-cubic-inch Chevrolet V-8 that can pull 8,000 rpms and lift the front wheels off the ground at the start.  It is  a 1951 Ford with a chopped top, sectioned into four quarters and re-welded to properly angle the window frames.

Fitch gained the skills that incidentally made him able to build cars like this, and work 35 years for Western Electric and AT&T, while growing up as a farm kid in Lebanon, Mo., where he graduated from high school.

“Farming is a hands-on way of life,” he explained.  “I learned to weld, about electrical and mechanical work, and just how to make things work, farming,” he said.

Fitch remembered his first car, another 1932 Ford, that he chopped the top on and hot-rodded at the age of 15. And he remembered his first new car, a 1966 Volkswagen.

“You know,” Earl reminisced, “that VW cost a dollar a pound — $1,600.”

Earl and Kathy’s move to Maeystown in 1975 was Missouri’s loss and the area’s gain.  In addition to continuing to work for AT&T, the ever-pleasant Earl became increasingly engaged in Maeystown civic endeavors.

He has accumulated more than 20 years of service with the Maeystown Sportsman’s Club, a stint as president of the Maeystown Civic Association – he now serves as treasurer – and numerous answers to calls from neighbors when they have problems with electrical matters, hot water heaters and other issues at homes and farms.

An hour in Earl’s large garage is an opportunity to see and learn about many things that share one characteristic.  All are ingenious and speak to attention to detail.

There’s the wood-fired stove that heats the garage in the winter. It’s fire box sends heat upward to a drum-shaped heat exchanger filled with tubes made of fence pipes. A blower at the back of the exchanger sends the heated air out in a steady stream to warm the entire garage.

Nearby lies what appears to be a new snake skin, once covering a large timber rattler.

“I rubbed that with glycerine,” Fitch explained. “It’s many years old, but pick it up,” he urged.

It was soft and pliable, like the day it was separated from the snake.

On a wall hung a wood chain. About two feet long, it featured perfectly carved links that resulted in a flexible chain.  When asked how he made it, smiling, Earl said he just decided to try it one day.  And like most things he tries, it worked.

Earl and Kathy also grow and put up a substantial portion of what they eat annually.  While he has not had much success with asparagus, he said they have great tomatoes, green beans and okra. And he cracks black walnuts with a hammer too, and freezes them for his wife to use at Christmas in cookies. They also process all their own meat.

Earl says he would like to build another hot rod.

“Actually, I’d like to build a hot rod motor cycle,” he said, “but I don’t think Kathy would go along with that now.”

He told how he and his wife used to ride a 1300cc knuckle-head Harley Davidson on weekends.

And he’d have to have a place to do this. What he thought was a hugely oversized garage at more than 30-by-50 feet, is now so full that his and his wife’s everyday vehicles are parked outside in the weather.

If you want to know how something works, or if it doesn’t work and how to fix it, ask Earl Fitch. He probably knows exactly how.

At least we didn’t find anything that didn’t work when we visited.