Fred Osborne will get you framed. He’s been framing pictures and artifacts at Mary Carter for 35 years.

Osborne went to work at Modernistic Printers at the age of 16. After he graduated from Cullman High School he and a friend, Raymond Young, started doing picture framing for ladies who did cross-stitching, family portraits, baby photos and many other things.

Later, Young bought the Mary Carter Paint store in downtown Cullman, and Osborne, by now his brother-in-law, went right along with him. He specializes in framing, Young runs the hardware section.

Osborne once framed the rim off of a car that was wrecked. “The man’s son survived, but that rim was about all that was left of the vehicle, so he had it framed,” Osborne explained.

He even framed a Playboy centerfold for Hank William Jr. once. Williams was a frequent customer at Mary Carter. “He would come in just like everybody else,” laughed Osborne. “He told us just to treat him like any regular customer, and we did. He mostly shopped for guns.”

Williams put the store in one of his songs, ‘I Got Rights’.

Mary Carter stocks a little of everything, guns, fishing tackle, Lodge cast iron cookware, and Radio Flyer wagons are among the most popular items.

On one end of the store are sixteen of those red Radio Flyers, shiny and brand new. They are headed to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham, courtesy of the Cullman Lion’s Club. “They use these to pull the little kids around in the hospital,” Osborne explained. “That’s a big place and we wanted to do something to help.”

Osborne is quick to tell you that joining the Lion’s Club has meant a lot to him over the course of the years. “Powell Blair got me to join,” he recalls. “The Lion’s Club is a great group of men who really enjoy working with things like the Cullman County Fair and other group efforts that make the community a better place.”

“I like seeing the kids come and enjoy the rides,” he smiled.

Among other endeavors, the Lion’s Club also helps to support Cullman Caring for Kids. Once per year they conduct a food drive to benefit that organization. Over the past six years the group has raised $59,392 for Cullman’s children through the agency, headed by Javon Daniels, also a Lion.

According to Osborne, the food drive started as a friendly rivalry between the Lion’s and a group of West Elementary school children. “They beat us the first year, but we’ve done better since then,” Osborne laughed.

He also helps out with the Lion’s car parking venture during the Rock the South Concert. Proceeds from parking the cars in Marvin’s parking lot also helps to raise money for Cullman Caring for Kids. “Everyone pitches in,” said Osborne. “When we start a project everyone helps.”

Osborne, who lives on a West Point farm with his wife of 52 years, Dolores, also raises some cattle with his son, Fred Osborne, Jr. who lives with his family just down the road.

Every morning the Osborne family has breakfast together, grandchildren Lee and Emma included. Then Osborne brings them to school at Sacred Heart on his way to work. Their mother, Laurie, works at the Veteran’s Affairs Hospital in Birmingham.

The Osbornes have a daughter, Laura Paul, who lives in Athens, with her husband, James, and their sons, John and Andrew.

Like most grandparents, the Osbornes dote on their grandchildren.

Osborne spends a lot of time outdoors, working in the yard, and at the little house out back where he keeps his collections of vintage and antique fishing lures and tackle. He’s not quite sure how he got started with that…he isn’t even much of a fisherman. “Years ago a boy came in the store with some tackle he’d bought at Lacon. He wanted to sell it and I bought it. That was the beginning of my collection,” he chuckled.

With retirement just around the corner for his wife, Osborne isn’t sure just how much longer he will work. The store is just like a second home to him. Osborne says that he and Young have gotten along wonderfully for 45 years.

He enjoys coming to work, meeting people, talking to friends and customers and working in the framing department. There’s just something special about the Mary Carter store. In his niche in the framing department, he is surrounded by photos of this and that- some are drawings done by Dot Graff, a well-known and respected Cullman artist. Along one wall, displayed in what is almost a form of abstract art, are arranged hundreds of different frame edges. Oddly enough, even though the 2011 storm took off most of the Mary Carter roof, these frame samples clung steadfastly to the carpeted wall, held in place by Velcro strips. “They never budged an inch in the wind,” he pointed out.

Come August, Fred Osborne will celebrate his 78th birthday. He is still making up his mind about retirement. He’ll get around to it one of these days…until then, he’ll be where he’s always been, in the back room at Mary Carter, with an orange cat and a lot of framing orders to get done.