
Bill Marquis’ hands are like battered baseball mitts. His fingernails are packed with the grime of the morning’s work. Dirt and sweat fleck his T-shirt and cap, even his snow-white beard.
The hum of machines surrounds George Blackwood as he stands over his band bender, making a cowboy’s spur. All around him – on the walls of the welding shop, above his desk – are pictures of his father.
A jet engine roars and spits out heat hot enough to melt asphalt, but it’s not the runway that the engine is trying to melt. It’s the snow on the runway.