All things old are new again : Why Rural Appalachian people sometimes keep old cars in the yard

      It  is wood cutting time again and this year I decided to pull this little blue beast back out of retirement - He has been sitting in the backyard for about three years with a flat tire and has been a storage building, dumpster and all manner of other things since that time. This is- without a doubt -the good side with only a dented door and no handle, a messed up radio antenna and mismatched tires. The other side is rusted out beat up and pretty much ugly with a window that will barely roll up and down, One wheel that sticks out too far , and mismatched tires. He has 237K and a vortex v6, and has been on fire twice( once in the cab and once under the hood). It has towed about 8 other vehicles to the junkyard on tow dollies and had hauled mules, donkeys , horses, junk iron and torn down houses in the attached trailer -which is really too heavy for the truck cause this is the 4th bumper as the other 3 broke or got torn off with various too heavy loads attached. Its a 4x4 with a high and low range and a CD player that still works. It was a little low on oil and the power steering has a significant leak so it grinds a little when about out of  fluid.

     Many people drove by and saw the old truck sitting , a few stopped to try to buy it. It wasn't very pretty back there with a flat tire and covered with old lumber and trash. I bought a brand new battery today and  five gallons of gas and, after changing the flat tire, Heather and I had it running in no time. The other tires needed aired up a little and then we hooked up and cleaned out the (also heavily trash laden)  horse trailer - good thing it was trash day.

    I had to prime it up by pouring fuel down the breather but once it started the first time it fired up the first crank every time afterwards.  Plans are to load the truck and trailer and back them up a few feet from the back door and throw a tarp over them so there is plenty of firewood ready once the snow is flying 

  Now look up in the wood line straight behind the drivers seat - that's another dodge minivan - a 93 - the one I drive is a 98 - the tires, brakes, and a great many other parts are the same. That's another reason why people keep old cars around their places - yeah it is worth 3-4 hundred dollars as junk iron but that would just get spent. As it sits it is there when I have a blowout on the way home from work or my radiator gets a leak or my alternator goes out. It also stores the seats out of my current van so I don't have to waste gas hauling the extra seats around all the time. This vehicle will start up and pull itself around - it has a very rare transmission that would fit my current van- would cost $2000 used at a salvage yard.

Behind the van and blocked from view is my 1992 Subaru Station Wagon - Its got a bad transmission with no reverse- It also has a broken front axle. None of the parts off it will fit my other vehicles but its still here for a third reason people keep their old cars - I just like it. I Love to drive it around with just one rear wheel pushing it around -its fun for playing in the mud and spinning and fishtailing on a wet road. Its also good for storing stuff - I keep all my outdated computers and CRT monitors in it and some big old TVs. 

That's me and my three wrecks but I am representative of the culture in the area. People keep things for years - something to fall back on mentality. It comes down from the pioneers who first moved into the area after the Revolutionary war - there wasn't a person nearby who could sell them a new wagon wheel when the old one broke , so whenever someone in the neighborhood got a new wagon the old one was a good source for cannibalized parts. The mentality of holding onto and getting just-one-more- use out of things made the pioneers able to survive.

   

 Picture an old farmer with a crosscut saw.

He used it till the teeth were short and thin and recut them with files, sharpened it down over and over until it was too thin and weak width-wise and unserviceable as a saw.

The farmer was wise and frugal so he fired up his forge and used the metal to construct a mowing scythe (think grim reaper) which he used for years to mow; sharpening it with a stone until it was too thin and flimsy for even that purpose. 

 Then he then fired up the forge again and cut it down into a set of knives for butchering. as they wore out he strapped the remnants to a piece of strap leather and used it to shell corncobs.

That old farmer got  a lot of use out of that saw. He was living in a house with boards he had cut out with it , eating  with knives it had been made into,  a cow who had been fed with grass it had cut and corn it had shelled.

     



Next this same farmer buys himself a 1926  Ford --when the engine wears out and it is no longer good as a vehicle, do you honestly think that farmer is going to throw in the towel and call a tow truck to come get it?

  No. he will cut the sheet metal out and roof a hen house with it, use the windows in an outbuilding, use the high carbon steel in the leaf springs for some of the best cutting tools one can construct. He can use the truck bed as a coal bin, the frame can be covered with wood and make an expedient bridge over the creek. The tires make planters in the yard and the rear wheels, and axle makes a fine trailer for his new 1935 Ford. His son in law who is trained by the coal mining companies as an electrician uses the battery, generator, and coil are hooked up with a waterwheel down in the creek to create the county's first electric fence. 

        70 years later and parts of the old Ford are still bouncing around the holler where the old farmer lived. I know because I ran over one of them three years ago, got a flat tire, and had to park my truck-- but it made an excellent tool for shelling dried corn off the cob.