Palmer Lawson has a basement and a shop full of computers, machines, tools and car parts.

His technical and mechanical savvy is why he is, as one of his friends put it, one of the “best kept secrets” in the area.

Lawson, who lives near Riverbend School in Pacific, is a Maryville transplant.

Just since leaving his hometown, he has had enough experiences to fill several lifetimes.

After graduating high school in 1955, he joined the U.S. Navy.

Lawson said his four years in the service gave his life direction.

“The best thing about being in the Navy was I realized I had to do something more important in my life,” he said.

Lawson served as an interior communications electrician on the U.S.S. Howard W. Gilmore out of Key West, Fla., a submarine tender.

The ship, originally commissioned in 1944, was decommissioned in 1980 and scrapped.

Lawson said while on the ship he was tasked with servicing gyrocompass and telecom equipment.

He joked about being an 18-year-old in Key West.

“That’s a horrible place for someone who is 18. The drinking age was 21. The island is about eight square miles in size,” Lawson said. “The beginning and end of your social life was at the USO.”

After serving his country, Lawson attended college at Northwest Missouri College and then transferred to the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy in Rolla, which today is known as the Missouri University of Science and Technology.

After college he worked for North American Aviation on the Minuteman missile guidance system.

“I decided the California life wasn’t the life for me,” he said.

He returned to Missouri and began working for McDonnell Aircraft and later at the Pea Ridge Iron Mine near Sullivan.

Once the mine closed in 1977, Lawson transferred to the St. Joseph Lead Company offices in Clayton.

There, Lawson said, he helped the company modernize its computer networks.

Lawson worked for the company, which later became Doe Run, for over 30 years.

After the death of his first wife, he traveled to Peru in 1996 to help the company open a copper mine and acquire a smelter from the Peruvian government.

He remained there, traveling to a number of locations in South America, until his retirement in 1998.

“I went down mainly to supervise electrical contractors,” Lawson said.

He worked in Peru as well as Chile, Brazil and Argentina.

Lawson has a number of photos from his time working in South America.

He recalled some of the small airports and airplanes he took on his trips.

One such plane was propped up by a wooden pole attached to a wheel, Lawson said.

“When I noticed how crammed full that plane was, I asked the pilot if he thought we’d make it off the ground. He said ‘Oh sure, this thing is rated at four times its listed capacity,’ ” Lawson said.

While conditions in South America were definitely different, Lawson enjoyed his time there, including his final days.

“I had one hell of a retirement party. They know how to party in Peru,” he said.

Now that he’s retired, Lawson spends time working on his hobby — cars.

His focus is the Ford Model A’s, which were only produced from 1928-1931.

Some of the Model A’s Lawson worked on have received significant upgrades from the stock 40 horsepower engines and drum brakes found on the original.

Lawson said he currently is working on rebuilding one Model A which will include a Roof 101 valve head, named after racer and designer Robert M. Roof, which Lawson said increases the car’s top speed to 101 mph.

“My forte is electrical engineering, but cars are more fun,” Lawson said.

He estimated he has restored about 15 cars so far and sold most of them.

Lawson said he also rebuilds Model A engines.

“You can buy almost all the parts for a Model A these days in a catalog,” he said.

Perhaps the most well-known and most acclaimed Model A Lawson has worked on was a speedster he rebuilt with friend Dean Bittick.

Besides winning three trophies at the St. Francis Borgia Spring Fest auto show in Washington several years ago, the car also won national awards at the World Model A Ford Meet in Dallas, Texas.

The red boat-tail speedster came about practically by chance.

Bittick, who lives a few miles from Lawson, learned of Lawson’s talents when seeking help rebuilding a 1930 pickup engine.

Lawson overhauled the engine and transmission and the two men became friends.

At Lawson’s shop one day, Bittick said he saw a running gear for a 1928 Model A.

Lawson told Bittick he didn’t know what he was going to do with the gear. Bittick said he had always wanted to build a speedster, and Lawson said the two men would build one.

Bittick said the two met through a mutual friend.

“He took me to meet Palmer because I needed an engine rebuilt in a Model A pickup truck,” Bittick said. “He said he’d rebuild the engine for me. That was the beginning.”

Bittick said the two men also built engine drip pans for Model A’s and have worked on tractors together.

“He’s probably one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known,” Bittick said. “He has a thirst for knowledge. He’s continually working, reading and studying.

“Palmer is very helpful and easy to talk to. He’s always willing to help. He’s a really kind person and a great teacher. He has a lot of patience That’s why I enjoy being around him,” he said. “To have someone to work with is really fun. It’s been a great friendship, that’s for sure.”

Lawson doesn’t claim to be entirely self-taught when it comes to all his technical know-how, however.

He frequently takes East Central College courses at the Four Rivers Career Center, Washington.

Seniors are allowed to take ECC courses at Four Rivers tuition-free if there is room in the class. They only need to pay for books and fees.

Lawson will take the last computer-aided design course the center offers this fall.

“It’s a great opportunity,” Lawson said.

Those classes have come in handy when it comes to running all the machines Lawson has in his basement.

The shop includes a lathe, drill press, surface grinder, band saws, welders and two milling machines.

The latest addition is a computer numerical control (CNC) vertical mill.

The mill is hooked up to a laptop computer. Lawson has a software program on that computer that allows him to tell the machine exactly what and how to cut metal and other solid materials.

Lawson said so far he’s made drilling tools, jigs and counterweights for crankshafts with the mill.

“All you do is press a button and it goes,” he said of the CNC mill. “I’ve made a lot of parts.”

The mill is similar to those at professional fabrication and tool and die shops.

Lawson has a few other hobbies scattered around his shop and basement.

One wall is lined with hundreds of pounds of keys and key cutting tools.

“I’ve always been into puzzles,” Lawson said. “Keys are just another puzzle.”

He said the easiest locks to solve, the ones that are least secure, are those with a master key.

“Those master key systems have so many possible combinations,” Lawson said.

“He’s able to machine parts for anything,” Bittick said. “He likes that challenge.”

Lawson doesn’t fill all of his time with his hobbies though.

He visits his daughter and grandchild when possible and tries to keep up with what’s going on in the world.

Lawson admits to watching an occasional baseball or football game, but said he isn’t too tickled with how obsessed society is as a whole with sports.

“We are more interested in sports than what affects our lives,” he said.