NEW IBERIA, La. (KLFY) – A 90-year-old local welder says he has no plans to hang up his torch.
Adam Lenard says he’s a welder through and through.
Lenard keeps busy doing what he’s done nearly all his adult life.
“I get up in the morning. I come in here. Nobody bothers me and I work. That’s all,” he explains.
Lenard says he was born and raised on a farm. At 17-years-old, he started working with a welder. He says that’s what sparked his interest.
“If I stop and tell you to do something, just listen. Don’t answer me and say that you know better,” Lenard adds.
Lenard said he didn’t work as a welder right away. He did a bit of moving from job to job.
“I was working there cleaning yards. Well, I had to work for a living, you know?,” he says.
Lenard says it was that same job that lit the path to his welding career.
“I said ‘Look, if you get a welding machine and a torch here, I’ll fix the bracket for you.’ He said ‘You’re joking.’ I said ‘No sir. I’ll fix it for you.'”
Lenard says that was it. He was a working welder — from there on out.
“It got so big I had six other guys under me,” he continues.
Eventually, at age 76 he retired.
“I said you know something, it’s time for me to retire. I told them I was retiring. They didn’t believe I was retiring,” says Lenard.
He has his own welding shop. He said his wife from time to time wishes he would take a break and truly retire the torch.
“When God tells me ‘That’s the end of it. Stop!’ I’m going to stop,” he says.
“I can say I did everything I wanted to do or accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish. That’s it,” Lenard says.
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