LYNN — Yes, that is a miniature football goal post topping the weather vane on John Markee’s garage and it is just the latest creation by an 82-year-old East Lynn resident who can’t slow down.
Markee has crafted commercial parts and artistic creations from metal throughout his adult life and retiring as a welder and metal worker last December hasn’t evaporated his creative juices. He continues to construct metal frames for flower baskets and metal frames. His most recent creation is the New England Patriots-themed weather vane.
Markee’s allegiance to the team is on display for his Jackson Street neighbors with the years of the Patriots’ six Super Bowl wins spelled out in Roman numerals and two stars adorned with “Bs” in homage to coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady.
“I spent about six weeks on it but it really took me about three,” he said.
An English High School Class of 1953 member and Marine Corps veteran, Markee was born in Manhattan and his family moved to Chelsea before settling in Lynn. He traces his love for building things to his grandfather, Ovid Markee, who helped build the old Item building on Mount Vernon Street and City Hall’s front steps.
He applied to be a welder at Boston Naval Shipyard after leaving the Marine Corps in 1955.
“They had more than 2,000 applicants and took only 96,” he said.
His welding skills brought Markee to jobs around the North Shore and Greater Boston, including Thermocraft Engineering in Lynn and a former race car chassis builder in Marblehead. Markee said he helped the car manufacturer overcome one of the biggest challenges facing race teams: How to preserve the car’s precise alignment while transporting it to and from races.
As his career progressed, Markee started exploring metal work as an art form. He became a close friend of Nahant artist Norman Laliberte, and when a Chicago museum searched for someone to design and build large banner frames, LaLiberte directed the museum staff to Markee.
He works out of a 15-foot by 22-foot shed in his backyard outfitted with an iron heating stove he built and the tools of his trade neatly hung in rows on the shed’s walls and laid out on work tables.
A typical creation like the weather vane begins with a simple sketch.
“From there, I decide on the size; hand cut the lettering and trace it on aluminum. As I go along, I tell myself, ‘I think I’ll change this a little bit and add this,'” he said.
Markee isn’t fazed by a project’s size or complexity, party because his memory still retains details he can summon in a split second.
“I’m fortunate that I retain everything,” he said.
His interests extend beyond metal crafting to astronomy and radio transmitting. In the decades before cellular service, high-powered transmitters linked radio operators with greater ease than a land-line long distance call. Markee tackled the tall order of building a powerful transmitter and tower with the intensity he brought to bear on building a race car trailer.
“I get into anything that interests me. I like using my head and working with my hands,” he said.
