LNC Tire Shop

For as long as anyone can remember, Juan Manuel loved cars. He played with them every day as a child.

He still loves cars. He even collects plastic models of them.

He left high school when he was 16 and started work, in a tire shop.

Ten years later he'd earned enough money to buy his own tire shop. He bought the one in Blissville.

In another epoch, it was the Blissville gas station.

But Juan Manuel is too young for those years. His customers are cars and trucks, and business has been good. If it continues, he'll open a car wash.

It's a family business. Everyone pooled their savings for his dream.

His brother Alberto and his cousin Jesus work there, and these days his mother helps out with the books.

Alberto is 18 years old and wants to be a paramedic. This September he'll start his studies at LaGuardia Community College.

He also wants to enter the Navy, but not while the war in Iraq is going on.

Jesus, on the other hand, shares Juan Manuel's passion. At 20, he is saving to open a tire shop of his own in a town 30 miles outside of Puebla where his family is from. He is not afraid of the machines that could take off a finger or the tires that could explode in his face.

He's only afraid of the raccoon that lives in the back inside one of the tires.