 We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These words from the Declaration of Independence are familiar to many of us, and yet it took 143 years for women to get the right to vote and 189 years for Black people to get the right to vote. And still today, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are still only words for many people. Here in Boston, life expectancy varies by 30 years, depending on where you live. In Roxbury, with many poor and Black people, life expectancy is 59 years. In the back bay, wealthy and mostly white life expectancy is 91 years. It's tough to have liberty when you are in prison. The United States incarcerates 716 people for every 100,000 people. Our rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most countries in the world. Millions of people in our country don't have health care, a decent job, good education, a home they can afford, and that makes it pretty hard to pursue happiness. So on this show, you are going to meet people who are making it possible to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. People today who are making the words of the Declaration of Independence come true. Hi, I'm Michael Jacoby Brown, your host of We Hold These Truths. And today we're very lucky to have with us Lou Paddy, owner and operator of Gray Paddy Auto. Gray Paddy Auto has been in Arlington for almost 50 years. Lou's been working there. And when we think about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, liberty often involves transportation. And I don't know about you or what planet you live on, but to get around Boston, unless you got all day, and don't worry about standing outside at a freezing bus stop for a half an hour, you need a car to have any kind of liberty. I often work in different parts of Boston, and I drive there. And one of the reasons I drive there is because Lou Paddy, for the last more than 20 years, has made sure my cars are able to get up and go every morning. And Lou's been working on cars for over 50 years. So Lou's really an important part of anyone who cares about liberty, because getting around in this city, in this country, in this state really often requires a car. So Lou, welcome. It's nice to have you here. And thanks for being here. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit about where you were born and how you ended up coming to Arlington. Well, nice to be here, Michael. Thank you very much. Well, I came here as an immigrant. I immigrated from Belgium in 1961. And after a short stay in Somerville, Mass, we moved to East Arlington in about 1966. Wow. And how did you get involved in the auto repair business? Tell us a little bit about it. Just while growing up, I was involved with people that were mechanics, mechanics, crackerjack mechanics. And I was self-taught. A lot of things that I did started out with small engines. Until again, I ran into some mechanics that were kind enough to teach me a lot of stuff. Where was that? Well, actually, I ran into a mechanic working at Mahoney's Rocky Lech Farm when I was old enough to get my working papers. I think back in the day, you could get your working papers at 14 or 15 years old. And immediately, this mechanic recognized the fact that I could be really helpful around the machines that they owned at the farm. You had an aptitude for that. I just kind of had a knack for it. Yeah, no, it's great that some people are good at that and some people not necessarily. It was something that came naturally to me. Yeah. And so tell us a little bit about starting Gray Patty. I mean, many of us know Steve Gray, unfortunately. Unfortunately passed away. Six years ago. I started at the gas station in 1974. Really? Sweeping floors and pumping gas. Which gas station was this? This was a Sonoco gas station that used to be across from Arlington High School. Oh, right. No longer there. Right. So I started there and Steve recognized the fact that I was worth a little more than just sweeping floors. And at the time, I had graduated high school in 1974. And after I took some automotive classes at high school, I enrolled in a program at Benjamin Franklin Institute of Boston in 1974 and graduated in 1976. At the same time, working for Steve Gray. And not only pumping gas, but working on automobiles under the supervision of another mechanic that I met in my life that helped me out a lot. Who was that? His name was John Anderson. John Anderson? Yes. It's good to say their names. Yeah. Because that's how we learned from people. And he was really good to me. He really helped me out a lot. He taught me a lot. Now is he still around? He is retired. But he's still around. He's still around. Yeah. Oh, that's great. And he taught you a lot. Yes. And tell us a little bit about starting Gray Patty Auto. I know that was almost 50 years ago now. I started in 1974 and in 1980, after working for Steve for six years, obviously, he offered me a share in the business, a half share in the business. Really? Wow. And I accept it, of course. And he needed somebody that he could trust, that he thought he could trust to take care of business so that he could take some time off and he could enjoy life a little more than just working. Yeah. Gas station businesses, the hours are just endless. What's it like? It's tough. What do you mean? With the regulations and back then, the paperwork involved in dispensing gasoline, purchasing, storing and dispensing gasoline. It was just, it was 24 hours a day. Really? What do you have to do? Because I think a lot of people don't know that. There was a lot of state and federal regulations that came into play in the 70s that made it very difficult to handle the product. Really? And the oil company was tough on their dealers. Earlier in the 60s, let's say, maybe the early 70s, the oil companies worked for the dealers. Really? But in the 80s, late 80s, the 90s, the dealers started working for the oil companies. And the oil companies became very strict on their pricing structures. They wanted their product to sell more than the product up the street, than the gasoline station up the street. And it was a very competitive market. Really? It was tough. Let's talk about cars themselves. You've been doing this since the 60s, right? Well, in the 70s, I was working on 60s cars, maybe even some late 50s cars that people still had around. So yeah, the 50s and 60s technology was at our doorstep when I was first starting in the business. Right. So how have cars, and now you've been repairing cars too, keeping people's liberty going for a long time. How have cars changed over all those years? The biggest changes have been in manufacturing, of course, a lot of lighter materials, a lot of plastics. Big changes came to the emissions and safety standards that this country was developing to try and create a product that would be less intrusive to our environment. In the middle 70s, the EPA, I believe, was formed and that was a big hit for the auto manufacturers because it was crunch time. It was time to clean up the tailpipe. So the automobile manufacturing really had a big job on their hands. The 60s were very dirty. The 50s were even dirtier, the automobiles. And if it wasn't for the EPA implementing these rules and regulations on an escalating basis every year, the manufacturers had to provide automobiles within their whole fleet that they offered to the public a certain number, a certain miles per gallon number. It was something that they had called cafe regulations. If it wasn't for the introduction of all these rules and regulations, although as strict as they were, it would be a lot dirtier around here. The air would be unbreathable. I think that it was a good measure by the U.S. government to implement some kind of strategy to clean up the air. A lot of people now obviously are concerned about global warming because most cars, except for electric cars, produce emissions that create the carbon in the atmosphere, which is causing all these storms and fires and all over the place. And yet most people to get around still need a car to get to work. I mean, my wife drove to Brigham and Women's Hospital this morning. Sometimes she can ride her bike and take the bus or the subway, but sometimes it's just not working. And in Boston's weather, a lot of times it's pretty uncomfortable to stand outside when it's 20 degrees waiting on Mass Ave for the bus, for the bus could take, I mean, I've been waiting out there sometimes when I do take it, 20, 25 minutes. So cars, unless something really changes, are going to be with us. I agree. So how do you see the future of cars in personal transportation? You're someone that's been, you know, so to speak, on the front lines for decades. The future of cars. Well, I think the future is pretty evident that the manufacturers involved around the world are no longer going to produce gasoline-powered automobiles or fossil fuel powered automobiles. A lot of the manufacturers have stated that. And they're going to go to the next best thing, which is, I think the next subject was the electric car thing. Right. We have some of that, but not a lot. Not a lot. Not a lot. I think that the future of the automobile, I still think it's going to have four wheels. When a wheel falls off, I've had that happen. Three, that happens. Yeah, that's kind of dangerous. I had one fall off at about 60 miles an hour once. It was not a happy experience. Yeah, really. I could live without it, probably. I see, I recently read an article about, again, a Wolverine company that builds flying automobiles. I don't know. I'm not so hip on that, but flying automobiles have been produced for decades. They just never got off the ground, so to speak. Really? Sometimes I'd like to have one when I'm stuck in a traffic jam. What are they? Go over the cars in front of you? I just don't get it. You've got to take off somewhere and you've got to land somewhere. Do they stop at red lights? When they're not flying, yes. I think they're called helicopters, aren't they? No, no. Actually, with wings and the amount of passengers depends on how much power is built into it. It's pretty strange. I don't think that's going to happen. I could just sit there crashing into each other. If it's got an engine, it's going to be a problem. What about the electric cars? What's it like, 2% of cars in these states? According to AAA, John Paul, I believe is the gentleman's name, the Alican advocate recently had an article. John Paul spoke at the Alican Men's Club, a retired men's club of violating, excuse me. He stated the fact that right now this country is utilizing approximately 2% of the vehicles in this country now are electric. If there's a sudden rise in that percentage of vehicles in this country, it's going to present a problem with the electrical grid. The available electricity is not there. Now, this morning I heard that part of the president's push on the structure, the whole structure deal, they want to fix all the bridges, they want to fix everything. Part of it was installing charge stations all over the country, and the government is going to fund that, subsidize it possibly. But I think that should have been taken care of before the electric car really started becoming more popular. Personally, I think that the hybrid product is still makes more sense. Because you've always got a filling station around. A filling station to me is whether you're filling it up with diesel fuel or gasoline or electricity, how come all the gas stations in Highlington or in any town, city, how come there are no charge stations in all of these areas? It is a filling station, right? Good question. Yeah. Ryan, what do you think it would take to change that? I mean, you know cars themselves, are the electric cars, what are they, I don't know if you repair them or if they need repair? We do not repair them. And we limited on the hybrid car repair simply because I haven't taken advantage of the education available. Because I think it's going to take a few years to learn how to repair the cars properly, the electric part of the hybrid cars. And I'm not, you know, I'm at the end of my after 50 years or more. After 50 years, I think I'm going to stop trying to learn about new stuff. And that may be the wrong approach. But I'm more comfortable trying to sustain the energy and the repairability that I can handle now at this stage of the game. But I still think that hybrid is the way to go. Electric cars, electric cars are going to put people like me out of business. Oh, really? Personally. Now, the maintenance on the electric cars is pretty much, I'm not going to say nonexistent. But it's a much cleaner operating vehicle. And that's part of the reason it's eventually going to become more popular. But it's less moving parts. We don't have all kinds of transmissions and transfer cases and engines to all orchestrate properly to make this vehicle go down the road. And not only here on Mass Ave, but on the highway at 60, 70, 80 miles per hour safely. The electric car is just incredible. Really? The electric car just at the snap of a finger. No noise. But it must have some moving parts. I mean, the wheels got to move. It's got moving parts. But I'd say less than half as much as a conventional automobile, probably 25%. So do you think it'll be, what it'll be like in terms of repair and longevity? Well, they, I mean, my Toyota, the little Prius you've been fixing for, I can't remember, long time. Long time. Right, thank you, Lou. That's got 172,000 plus miles on it. Fatted for, I don't know, 10 years? Essentially, you know, you take the electric out of that car, that automobile, and it's just, it's like a conventional automobile. Does the electric part of it actually create more longevity as far as, as far as how long the vehicle lives? I don't know. Apparently, it does a pretty good job, because there's a lot of Priuses out there. All the Priuses that are still going, and they're still in pretty decent shape. Right. But they're not totally electric. They're hybrid. They're not totally electric. They still have a small gasoline engine. Yeah. But obviously, it's not overworked. I couldn't tell you, I couldn't tell you, if I've ever seen a Prius, that I personally have had to replace an engine. Really? Just, if properly maintained, I think that car will go 300,000 miles. If it doesn't rust away, you know, everything as far as if it doesn't get crashed, if it doesn't rust away, there's a handful of things that are going to go wrong, but it's totally acceptable. Right. Well, what would it take to have, in terms of, you know, improving the environment, and if electric cars are the future, you said a lot of manufacturers are going to be only making electric cars. Only making, I don't know if strictly, for example, Volvo announced maybe last year that they were, in five years or four years, they were not going to sell internal combustion automobile. But, well, okay, so that answers my question. Internal combustion means that it's not going to be a hybrid. Right. It's not going to be a hybrid in either way. It's going to be totally electric. Right. So it's got to be a plug-in, or it's got to have some kind of means of recharge. But what would it take to have more electric cars? You said there aren't enough charging stations. The infrastructure is not there. I mean, what would specifically do you think it would take? It would take electrical generation, bigger power plants, larger power plants, more solar, you know, solar to provide electricity to power the automobiles. I'm not an electrical engineer by any means. I would think that the charge thing would have already been implemented. It's kind of like taking the carriage before the horse. Right. We've got the product. The product is here. But I think if you talk to some people and they say, this is not my travel car, if I want to travel, I'm going to take the Prius. Right. You know, I'm not going to take the Tesla. Really? Okay. You know, I'm going to keep my Tesla, but it's going to stay inside of 128. Really? You know, and I'll be fine with that because I'll never have to worry about recharging it. But if I'm going to drive out to Ohio. Yeah, although I told you a friend of mine drove from Minneapolis to here in his Tesla. He said it was all... Well, if you go to Tesla, you need to be... You need to have one of those powerful phones that will tell you where all the charge stations are. Yeah, I guess that's what he did. And if there's other people at the charge station, you're going to be there for a while. I see. Right. It must take a while. It doesn't charge right away. It's not like filling my car up with gas that takes five minutes. Right. Not at all. Not at all. Might as well watch a movie. Well, what would you say to... You know, you've been doing this for 50 years, but cars are going to change. What would you say to young people thinking of getting into repairing cars? It's a... You know, and I know there's some younger people now working for you. It's kind of a tough question. What would you say to them? What I see on my information databases that I have at the garage is, you know, if I look up a Prius and I need some specifications, I just jump in and I enter all my information and it comes back and then I pick out what I need. Now, if I go to Tesla and my information database is updated every month... Really? Wow. There's no information on Tesla. Really? I can't even tell you how these automobiles get repaired. I'd like to someday go to a Tesla dealer and see what the mechanics are doing. I don't even think they have dealers. I think you buy them all online. So, you know, that being said, you know, what are your recommendations to a young kid who wants to get into the automobile industry, stick it out and just work on automobiles until everything's electric? How long is that going to be? I think it's going to be a while. I think you probably... Another 25 years? I think after 25 years, you're not going to see the car in garage anymore. Really? I could be totally wrong, but the way I see it's going, I can't afford to buy the computer networks and the software to work on these automobiles today. I would have to specialize on, for example, VW and buy all the equipment just to work on VW to repair the product accurately, or BMW. It's the same thing. The software and the hardware from either manufacturing basis, I'm not going to be able to use it on another manufacturer's product. And it's the same thing with Chevrolet, and it's the same thing with whatever brand is being produced at this time. So it's very expensive to buy all the data? It's very expensive to be able to... Okay, so just a quick example when we were at the gas station, we got along with the Buick dealership down the street. I bought a lot of parts for GMs through the Buick dealership, which is no longer there, but the way, which is the CVS now. And they worked on Buicks. If I had a problem with a Buick and I couldn't figure it out, I'd go down to see my buddy and say, hey, what do I do with this? And he'd be like, well, look in this area and and he'd give me some pointers. But if an Asian car ever came into their shop, you know, everybody was just, well, what do we do with this? Send it to great baddies. Let me... I'm going to go up and see Lou and Steve and see what they can tell me about this. When the Asian automobiles came to this country, immediately they were in our shop getting maintained. More than maintenance, they were getting repaired. They were no better than the American cars in any way until... More recently, now they are. Until the late 80s, the early 90s. But back to the fact that somebody... I see that Minutemen Tech has just reorganized. Right. And they've even changed the name. Not sure about that. Minutemen Regional. Really? They changed the name, but they're still keeping the automotive technology program. And I say that because I think my daughter had showed me what the tuition base was now. There is a tuition base now at Minutemen Tech. I don't know what I would recommend as far as somebody that wanted to get into automotive technology nowadays. Like I said, I think it's changing. It's ever changing. You have to be more computer literate than us dinosaurs. Well, you're no dinosaur. Well, I want to thank you, Lou. Our time's about up. But I want to thank you. You've been taking care not only of my car, but probably half the people in Arlington's cars. And when we talk about keeping the truths of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, I know for one. And I bet for many of you, being able to have an automobile that's reliable, you want to go to Lou Patty, you know, Gray Patty Auto on Mass Ave in Arlington to have it fixed. And part of liberty is to be able to get around. And I don't know what the future of personal transportation or public transportation is going to be, but I think I agree with Lou Patty that cars are going to be with us for a long time. So thanks for tuning in. My name is Michael Jacoby Brown. I'm your host of We Hold These Truths. We were really honored to have Lou Patty of Gray Patty Auto, Arlington institution with us today. And we hope you'll tune in next time. Okay. Thank you very much.