Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 25, 1993 TAG: 9311240081
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Jack Peterson remembers the sound of his own ribs cracking.
Working under a tractor on his Pilot farm, he was trapped as the vehicle's huge rear wheel rolled over him in a freak accident two springs ago.
"It broke every rib in my body. I could hear 'em going, `pop, pop, pop,' one right after the other."
It was, he says, the work of the Lord.
At least the fact that he survived. A doctor at Radford Community Hospital told him, he said, that if the wheel had crossed his chest an inch higher or an inch lower he'd be dead now.
For the proprietor of Jack's Garage in Christiansburg, it's just one more reason to witness for the Lord. Which Jack Peterson does in a big way.
It's hard to miss Jack's Garage at 1205 West Main St. It looks as if it came straight out of a Flannery O'Connor short story.
Not because the parking lot is jammed with cars, trucks and even a John Deere tractor in varying stages of repair. Not even because of the big wooden cross in the window, festooned with white lights held on by masking tape.
No, it's the huge mural painted on the front of the four-bay building that irresistibly draws your gaze - that and the slogans that stretch from one end to the other.
In the mural's foreground, cars and trucks are smashing into each other on a four-lane freeway leading into a huge metropolis. Jesus floats in the air over the skyscrapers as a jetliner crashes into one of the buildings.
From a nearby graveyard, ghost-like spirits rise from their tombs to meet Jesus in the air, as do the spirits of drivers of several of the wildly careening cars.
You can't help but notice that some of the cars don't have spirits rising from them, and it's a safe bet that the occupants of these vehicles have reservations in the Other Place.
A Renoir or a Gauguin he's not, but his mural makes its point.
"We've had photographers from all over the country stop and take pictures of it," said Peterson, whose accent still signals his Long Island upbringing. "It's been in national magazines, all over the place."
The mechanic first saw a smaller version of the picture in a catalog published by the Bible Believers' Evangelistic Association, where it is indistinctly signed "Chas. Anderson, 1974." Peterson hired Lacy Breeding, who lives in Galax, to make a mural-size copy on the front of his garage in the summer of 1982.
Breeding, who is a security guard at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, says he is "gifted from Jesus" with his artistic talent and has had no training except for a two-year correspondence course. He copied the picture from a postcard.
The response was instantaneous.
"It's surprising how many people have come in on account of that picture," Peterson said. One North Carolina trucker stops every time he drives through the area.
"Back when we had gasoline, I had a lot of chance to witness. We had a tract rack, and people came in and out all the time. I love witnessing.
"By the way, are you saved, brother?" Peterson asks his interviewer.
Although baptized a Catholic, the 54-year-old mechanic now attends Gateway Baptist Church in Lusters Gate. He sent both of his adopted children, who are now grown, to its Christian school.
Peterson moved to Christiansburg in 1977 because "I wanted to get closer to Christian people, and New York was not the place." He ran both Texaco and Shell service stations before moving to his present location.
At the same time his mural went up, Peterson also had a number of patriotic and religious slogans painted on his building.
In the middle of the mural of Jesus' second coming is this poem:
"When Jesus Christ comes for his own/In the twinkle of an eye-/When the trumpet call of God shall sound,/To tell us the time is nigh."
Over one of the bay doors are the words:
"God, said it. That settles it. Whether you or I believe it or not."
Another message asks:
"How much more will America be judged, Knowing, of the Lord's word, and ignoring it."
Under large capital letters proclaiming "WAKE-UP-AMERICA" are verses from Genesis. A fierce eagle with extended talons flies between two bay doors, and a large American flag is adorned with "Love It or Leave It."
There's lots more. If your car's not ready when you arrive, you can while away the time by reading the building.
Not all the reaction has been pleased. Peterson reports that one customer, irritated at what he thought was a high price for gas, said, "Looks to me like you're trying to sell your gasoline three or four cents higher because of your Christianity." Not long after that, Peterson quit selling gas and concentrated on general auto repair.
Not surprisingly, Jack's Garage is one place where theological discussion is as easy to come by as an oil change. A faithful customer and frequent theological sparring partner is Father Harry Scott, pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Anglican Catholic Church in Christiansburg.
Scott's high-church Anglo-Catholic background is about as far removed as can be imagined from Jack Peterson's fundamentalist Protestantism, and the pair frequently tangle on the subject of salvation. Peterson says a Christian who is saved can count on going to heaven; the priest insists that backsliders can choose to reject God.
Whatever their religious differences, Scott has emphatically chosen Peterson for the salvation of his vehicles, following him from two previous locations in town.
"Jack is a wonderful mechanic and a thoroughly decent and wonderful human being," Scott said. "Sometimes I tease him and say, `Now, we Catholics have to stick together,' but we've had several vehicles with over a hundred thousand miles, and he's the reason they've stayed on the road."
by CNB