Something happened here today that I’ve never seen before: a couple of big trucks showed up and took away a bunch of dead cars!
It took them most of the day. There must have been eight or nine vehicles, and I’m kind of sad to see them gone. To me they were part of the landscape—one was even inspirational, the white Plymouth sedan you see below. Almost every time I drove by, I noticed it. Nothing fancy, but over 40 years old and still gleaming white in the New Mexico sun. Hardly any rust that I could see, either. Lately I’d glanced over at it and realized that we don’t make cars like that any more: steel, not plastic, something you could count on for a long time if you were careful. Does anyone think a new car today would last for 40 years sitting out in the sun like that, or that all its plastic pieces would?
But everything is gone now, and I’ll have to range farther afield to take ironic photographs of heavenly vistas grounded by junk cars. (Like maybe another 100 yards.) Back in 2000 in San Cristobal, there was a fellow who lived in a trailer surrounded by ’71 Mercury Comets. Every time he found one, he must have bought it and hauled it up there. You find this kind of behavior among a certain kind of men who tend to live in rural areas or small towns, where it’s tolerated as an expression of native shrewdness and Godly thrift, as in, “These are gonna be valuable some day,” or, “Hell, I can use the rest for parts!” I should talk: I once bought two ’68 Volvos for exactly that same reason, and one of them actually ran for a couple of weeks.
It’s strange to see the opposite happen here, and until this evening none of it made sense. Nobody ever takes dead cars away, so what’s the gimmick, why go to all the trouble? And then it hit me: ANOTHER TRAILER!
There’s about enough room on that corner for a single-wide and a pickup. I’ll take a picture when they’re all moved in.
Related posts:
{ 0 comments… add one now }
{ 1 trackback }