In a remote country corner of Frostproof there exists what may be the last of a dying American breed. The tinkerer.

Many may be too young to remember tinkerers. However, there was a time when virtually every family had at least one of these magnificent, almost mystical beings. Tinkerers usually existed in the form of a father, grandfather, or brother.

Tinkerers specialized in reviving and/or improving inanimate objects. Failing that, they were able to take the object’s individual parts, maybe adding some other miscellaneous scraps and transform what most would consider junk, into diving helmets, flying machines, vehicles and other wondrous appliances of all sorts, sizes and shapes.

With tinkering comes experimentation, innovation, and some of mankind’s greatest inventions. Tinkerers were what made this country great. But in today’s “throw it away and buy a new one” society, the tinkerer is all but extinct. Except maybe in this little corner of the world.

Meet Jim Eubanks, tinkerer extraordinaire and his wife, Jackie, a bit of a tinkerer in her own right.

Their home is a Swiss chalet type building perfectly befitting the pair. Eubanks explains he “and his wife built the house from scratch some 20 years ago.”

“The house is a copy of Jackie’s mother’s 500-year-old home on the Isle of Wight off the southern coast of England,” he added.

The building has this feeling of everlasting permanence, and Eubanks notes, “it’s already been through three hurricanes.”

He bemoans the fact that he’d “never be able to build a house like this today. The cost of the high quality materials alone would be prohibitive.”

Walking through the house, Jackie described how they painted the two beautiful wall murals. The one in the living room they created “using a small photograph of a landscape scene from the Isle of Wight and a grid technique to enlarge it to a 6-foot-by-5-foot wall mural.” The beautiful country scene on the dining room wall Jackie painted freehand.

Furniture that appears to be fine antiques was actually recycled from yard sales — stripped and refinished so every piece in each room appears to be part of a matching set.

Off the hallway is a utility room. Eubanks opens the door and explains how he can “run the clothes dryer on the lowest possible heat setting because of an air intake hose from the dryer up to the attic.”

So instead of sucking in room temperature air and then heating it to dry the clothes, his dryer will suck in hot air from his attic using that to dry the clothes.

“And we all know how hot a Florida attic can get,” he noted.

In the kitchen Eubanks displays the “paper-towel holder and cutter” he designed. He made it from parts he bought at a flea market.

“My wife and I were at Walmart and couldn’t find any of the half-sheet paper towel rolls,” he recalled. “Now I can buy any roll of paper towels and cut it off at any length I want.”

It’s not the only kitchen gadget he has fashioned.

“On the counter sits a coffee container I built which keeps the coffee fresh and measures out as much as you need to make a pot of coffee without opening it,” he pointed out.

Jackie had finished baking some brownies and was cooking the dinner (barbecued chicken), yet the kitchen was amazingly cool.

He built and uses a solar oven located outside the house.

“And since a solar oven uses no power other than the sun, it costs nothing to cook our meals. The oven can get up to 400 degrees and the food flavors are unmatched by any conventional oven.” Eubanks said. “The oven will do any kind of cooking or baking you want. And since the oven was built from things I had around here, building it didn’t cost me anything out of pocket.”

Next up, his shade machine.

“The gazebo that rotates whenever you need shade from the sun or want to catch a breeze,” he explained.

Jackie has a garden complete with a little waterfall they built. Near it you can’t help but notice the covered 1970 Plymouth Fury. You aren’t a true tinkerer if you don’t have a vehicle sitting around, that needs tinkering.

Beyond the Plymouth is an elevated 500-gallon water tank “that will supply water to the house in the event of a complete power failure,” he added. There’s also a wind-powered generator hooked to an inverter so that 110 volts electricity can be supplied to the house in the event of a power outage or to supplement the main power supply. Eubanks is planning another wind-powered generator dedicated to powering the freezers and refrigerator.

There are solar panels to supply hot water to the water heater, and last but not least, his invention to make his air conditioning work better.

“I dug an 8-foot deep ditch and buried about 750 feet of one inch poly water pipe that is then run through a radiator in front of the air conditioner evaporator. This pre-cools the air that the air conditioner sucks in. Now the air conditioner can run more efficiently.”

And that’s in addition to shade he constructed to keep the sun off the condenser coils which also increases the efficiency of the air conditioner.

In addition to all this tinkering, Eubanks managed to raise a family of three boys and a girl. The boys are all in construction now and his daughter works with an environmental company in Texas.

So now what does a tinkerer do when not tinkering? Well, this tinkerer has own website (countryairplay.com) where you can go and hear excerpts from country music written and performed by none other than our tinkerer, Jim Eubanks.

In addition to the music, you’ll find social commentary with a decidedly small town Americana perspective reminding us of what this country used to stand for and the frustration small-town America is feeling with its government, at all levels.

Site visitors may not agree with everything that’s said, but one thing you have to respect, is that you’re getting an honest viewpoint from an honest, hardworking man.

You can reach Jim Eubanks, the Tinkerer, for comment, or consultation on any of his projects at euby326@msn.com.