by Bill Gedye

There it sits, alone and forlorn, up against the side of that building or alone in the middle of that field off to your right as you slide by on your way down the road. Your attention is split between checking it out and hitting the proper apex for that next turn coming up so you don’t end up in the weeds, sitting alone and forlorn yourself.

One trip, these monuments to the past intruded into my psyche enough to start checking them out, instead of just passing them by. Most of these relics from the 50’s and 60’s are recognizable, and I’m old enough to remember when they were shiny new on the dealers’ lot, reflecting rows of naked lightbulbs in sparkling fresh paint.

Take this ‘64 Ford Galaxie 500 XL 2 door hardtop, for example. In it’s day, this unit was the cutting edge of style and performance. Ford had radically shifted their rounded styling of the ‘63 to the striking angular lines of the ‘64. They retained their trademark bullseye taillight and were well down the 60’s horsepower highway with the introduction of the huge 406 cu.in. motor….a big step up in displacement from the previous year’s 390, and the interim step to the King Kong 426 yet to come in another year or so. Then, displacement was king and this unit was a player. The new fastback roof line started in late ‘63 and was a great advantage in Ford’s NASCAR effort….everyone else was saddled with a brick like c-pillar. This piece was one of the big three in the days when performance meant displacement, meant horsepower….and gas was 25 cents a gallon.

Others are rusted skeletons of the 20’s or 30’s…unknown and unloved…their makers’ badges long since removed by souvenir hunters…their bones picked clean by the buzzards. They evoke images of Oakies fleeing the dustbowl conditions of the Midwest, these barely running wrecks heaped down with belongings, bleak faces staring from a black and white tableau. Is this what brought these old bombs to the side of the road? Were they abandoned after breaking down along the way? This area has entertained generations of fruit picking migrant workers and that scenario is as likely as any…one way transportation to a new life in the interior. And what about the owners? Who saw this sassy black box with the swooping fenders in the showroom and marvelled that it actually had a rack on the back that would accommodate a real steamer trunk? Who’s hands gripped that steering wheel, mile after dusty mile? Who lifted that hood up and cursed Nash ‘cause he didn’t fit a larger rad and now the motor’s seized?

Not only are the cars, but how about the trucks? They too eventually wear out after a hard life of hauling and dragging all manner of goods across the fields and into town, then they too are abandoned by the roadside. Huge square fronts sit side by side as if lined up in that last freight yard in the sky….escaping the relentless baking heat only in the shade of a tree which continues to grow between them, until they are hauled off to be melted down, their spare parts no longer of use to anyone.

Most of these truck hulks are recognizable, but how about those others, whose shapes only look like ancient toys…not the roaring lurching reality of work on the farm? Their windshields and drivelines broken, they are retired instead of abandoned…though retired none too gracefully, as few are restored to their former glory as a classic car would be. They sit here, warts and all, a rusting reminder of a past that we can only imagine, as all the hands that gripped those wheels are gone as well.

There are contemporary abandonements as well. Check out part of someone’s home on the way to the coast which found itself horizontal after missing a turn near Friday Creek on Hwy.3.
…and we ride on down the road, shifting up through the gears, getting back up to speed. Someday, someone may wonder whose hands gripped the handlebars of that rusting and neglected old 1100 Honda deteriorating at the side of that house…and the stories they could tell about riding through the 2 lane winding roads of the interior, watching the sun come up over the hills, knowing its going to be another hot one. The rain, the heat, the adrenaline rush when you saw that deer at the side of the road preparing to hurl itself in front of you…arriving at the campground, hot and sweaty after 10 hours on the road, to a welcome splash in the lake as soon as you can get your gear off.

We could tell them stories…..oh, we could tell them stories.

Bill Gedye,
Two Wheel Tales