SHALIMAR — Eighty years have passed since Jim Davis changed a tire for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

He got a dollar for his efforts and a story that’s lasted a lifetime.

“I didn’t find them, they found me,” said Davis, who is 95 and lives in Shalimar.

At the time – his best recollection is that it was 1934 – he was living with his mother on an isolated country road in southwest Louisiana.

That would have been just a few months before the notorious crime duo was killed in an FBI ambush about two hours north of Davis’ home.

They were already in bed when Barrow approached the house and yelled for help. At 14, he was the man of the house, so Davis told his mother to stay put and walked outside.

“I got a problem,” the stranger said. “I’ve got a flat and I don’t have anything to fix it with.”

Davis ran to his chicken house for glue and patches of rubber. While he worked, the man introduced himself as Clyde – a name that didn’t initially mean anything to the teenager.

Then Clyde mentioned that his girl, Bonnie, was sitting in the front. Davis walked up to say hello and immediately realized who he was helping.

“When I opened the door, there was a machine gun and a couple of shotguns and some pistols all in the car,” he said. “She had them on her lap.”

The pretty brunette, who wore a dress but wasn’t “too spruced up,” smiled at him but didn’t speak. Behind her, in the back seat, were large containers of liquor.

“We had moonshiners in that area,” Davis said. “I knew ‘em all.”

And he’d heard stories about Bonnie and Clyde. Everyone had.

“Who was that, son?’” his mom asked, after they drove away.

“I said, ‘That was Bonnie and Clyde.”

She gasped.

“They had a reputation,” Davis said. “They were criminals. They had robbed everything possible.”