At the workshop: Amory man ‘a wizard with everything he touches’
By M. Scott Morris
Daily Journal
HATLEY, MS
Billy Wayne Taylor knows his place in the world. It’s at the northeast corner of the four-way stop in Hatley, in a former hardware store with a leaky roof and a pressed tin ceiling.
“I remember walking across my grandfather’s field to get here,” Taylor, 73, said. “I used to buy .22 shells to go hunting. That was back in the ‘50s.”
He bought the old building decades ago. It’s his workshop and home away from home. Taylor lives in Amory, but he always makes time to get to his Hatley workshop.
“Seven days a week,” he said. “I drop my wife at church and come by in the morning.”
Taylor was born with a gift, and he’s been putting it to use since childhood. He understands the ins and outs of things.
“God gave me a good brain, so I use it,” he said. “It’s just something I’ve always been able to do: take stuff apart and put it back together.”
Taylor’s ability amazes Alan Clay, who recently sought help for his boat.
“He’s a wizard with everything he touches,” Clay said, and Taylor didn’t waste any breath correcting him.
The former hardware store appears to be a chaotic place. Cars, motorcycles and their parts are scattered about. Engines on stands are ready to be tweaked, if not totally rebuilt.
One shelf has nine carburetors in a row, and another shelf offers a history lesson on intake manifolds. All the other shelves are filled to haphazard capacity.
But the chaos is an illusion.
“I know where everything is,” Taylor said. “I can walk to whatever I need.”
The more important stuff is covered with tarps or plastic sheeting. An open umbrella protects a motorcycle from getting dripped on.
“When I first moved in here, when it was raining, you couldn’t walk from one end to the other without getting wet,” Taylor said. “I got it down to six leaks now. I can’t find them. Water moves across that tin ceiling and drips down.”
No matter its faults, the place is perfect for Taylor.
“I look scroungy all the time,” he said with a smile, “because that’s what you’re supposed to look like if you’re a mechanic.”
The building has electricity, but lights are generally reserved for the tiled bathroom that includes a shower. In the workshop, natural light filters through the windows, which is all he usually needs.
“I work on one thing, then I turn around and work on something else,” he said, “but I have a plan. I pretty much know what I’m going to do when I come in here.”
He’s got a ‘69 Mustang that’s he practically rebuilding from the bottom up. Taylor’s also proud of his ‘61 Econoline truck, another full-blown project.
“I bought my first car when I was 12, and I’ve been working on them ever since,” said Billy Wayne Taylor, 73. “It’s a lot of fun, and it’s something to do.”
And his 1923 Bucket T roadster is coming along nicely. Taylor fabricated a fiberglass top for it, and he converted an old garbage can for the hood. If he can’t get the part he needs, he makes it.
“There’s not much you can’t do if you’ve got a little bit of head on your shoulders,” he said.
He’s at the workshop from about 8 a.m. to noon. People who need him know where he is.
“I had a cellphone that would ring every 10 minutes, and it was usually somebody I didn’t need to talk to or somebody I didn’t know,” he said. “I was walking by a creek one day and I just threw it in. Didn’t need it, haven’t missed it.”
His friends visit the shop on occasion, and ladies in the community have been known to drop by to get help with their cars, but Taylor limits the amount of work he does for other people.
“A lot of them come in here and they want me to paint their car or fix it, but I’m particular about that. It has to be done right,” he said. “If the carburetor needs to be rebuilt, then it needs to be rebuilt. They’ll say, ‘No, I don’t need that.’ Well, if I’m going to do it, it’s going to be right.”
It’s his shop, so he can do what he wants, but the old building isn’t the same refuge it was a few short weeks ago.
Taylor is mourning the death of his son, Russell, a decorated Iraq War veteran who died two days shy of his 40th birthday. No cause of death has been released yet.
“If it’s time for you to go, God’s going to take you. I’m a big believer in God and Jesus Christ,” said Taylor, who also lost his daughter, Patty, some 20 years ago. “A father and mother are not supposed to outlive their kids. We’ve lost both.”
Taylor had planned to give the workshop and all its automotive glory to his son.
“I’m going to sell,” he said. “Anybody that wants it, if they got the money to buy it, I’m going to let them have it.”
Even so, he’s not giving up his routine. He traveled the world during his 20 years with the Air Force, and he’s decided there’s no place he’d rather be than Monroe County, splitting his days between Amory and Hatley.
Adam Robison | Buy at photos.djournal.com When Billy Wayne Taylor finishes with this 1969 Ford Mustang, it’ll be quite a machine. “Over 1,000 horsepower, I’d say,” he said.
He would like to share his mechanical wizardry if he could find someone willing to learn. He imagines a kid buying an old car and bringing it to the workshop.
“I tell any kid, if you want to learn about mechanics and bodywork, come out here,” he said “You don’t have to pay me. I’ll teach you. You just have to clean up what you mess up.”
Taylor had an apprentice for a year and a half, until the young man joined the military. No one’s taken his offer since.
“You can’t get any kids who want to do any work,” he said, “but I’ll teach them if they come.”
Interested parties already should know not to call, and they also should know where to find Taylor any day of the week, any time of the year.
“Of course, you never know from one day to the next what’s going to happen, whether you’re going to be here or not. When it’s your time, it’s your time,” he said, “but I don’t want to sit down and fall over dead because I didn’t have anything to do. I got my first job when I was 9 years old, and I’ve been working ever since. But now, nobody tells me what to do or how I’m supposed to do it.”
scott.morris@journalinc.com