Getting Back

to Nuts

and Bolts

ACTOR JOHN RATZENBERGER WANTS TO SEE EVERY KID BECOME A HANDS-ON MAKER. BY DALE DOUGHERTY

Forty years ago at Woodstock, John Ratzenberger was operating a tractor. He lived nearby in Bearsville, N. Y., working as a journeyman carpenter, and he’d heard the festival was going to need workers. When he showed up, someone asked if he could drive a tractor. “I said yes, and they gave me the keys,” he remembers.

What he recalls about Woodstock is the rain and how unprepared the crowd was when the food ran out and the porta-potties were full. “If it wasn’t for the National Guard, who arrived with food and toilets, Woodstock would have been remembered as another Donner Party,” says Ratzenberger, who stayed busy using the tractor to help free vehicles stuck in the mud.

Ratzenberger is remembered by many as the iconic barfly Cliff Clavin on the TV series Cheers, but a younger generation is more likely to recognize his voice. The actor has played toys, vehicles, and other characters animated in every Pixar movie, including Hamm the piggy bank in the Toy Story series, and Mack the truck in Cars. “I got the part because the folks at Pixar knew my father was a truck driver,”

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