Mel Berger Works Magic On Mowers
Lawn rangers trek to the yellow house at 913 N. Park trundling the broken-down tools of their trade - riding mowers that are riding rough or self-propelled Toros that aren’t propelling.
They’ve heard, through the grassvine, that if anyone can repair their malfunctioning mowers, Mel Berger can.
Judging from the brisk business at Mel’s Lawnmower Repair one day recently, Berger’s reputation as the sultan of Snappers is well-deserved.
People pulled into his driveway towing lawn mowers on trailers or carrying them in the trunks of their cars.
At least a half-dozen people either dropped off or picked up their mowers in a 30-minute stretch.
“I don’t advertise or nothing,” said Berger, 56, who doesn’t even have a Yellow Pages listing. “Too many people know about me already.”
He estimates he’s already worked on several hundred mowers this year and may get his hands on another hundred or two before the grass stops growing this fall.
Berger’s been repairing mowers for 20 years - seven at his current location. His back yard and the concrete pad in front of his garage show the signs.
You can’t swing a Weedeater around Berger’s place without hitting a lawn mower.
Mowers of all makes, models, sizes and colors are parked around in various stages of repair and disrepair.
“I pick them up here and there,” he says.
Some of them he strips for parts. Others he refurbishes and then sells. It’s a six-day a week job for him and two part-time mechanics.
“Can’t pay the bills if you take time to play,” he says in a hollow baritone, brought on by decades of smoking and yelling over whining motors. “That’s for the kids.”
Berger’s always been mechanically inclined - he recalls repairing his brother’s bicycle back when he was 11 years old - and made a career out of turning wrenches.
He quit school after the eighth grade to pursue his vocation and has fixed cars and trucks and worked in a foundry.
But Berger says he likes working on lawn mowers best.
Their one-cylinder engines are simple, he says, but precise. A mechanic can’t fudge a job on a lawn mower and get away with it, he adds.
The 47-year Spokane area resident also likes the interaction with his customers.
Many people bring in a mower that’s not running, thinking they’ll have to spend several hundred dollars to replace it, he says.
Forty-five minutes and $30 later, their mower is up and running good as new, he says.
“Finding something you like to do - that’s the main thing,” he says. “And if you can do something to help people out, too, that’s a good feeling.
“I do all right.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo