At the scrapyard

larry@stinescorner

Well-known Member
i stopped over to see my friend Kris today.He happened to be in the middle of cleaning up around
his shop and yard.He said,might as well load any scrap metal up and take it to the scrapyard,I
helped him ,,walking around,,grabbing what looked like scrap,,and making sure he approved before
it went on his pickup.In no time at all we had a pickup full.In his shop ,his son and friends
throw all the beer and soda cans in containers and boxes,,but never take them ,,so we took all
them too.He got 9 dollars for aluminum cans,,,61 dollars for all the scrap,,not bad,the scrap yard
is in Manville NJ ,,the next town over,not far at all/.I did think of Jeffcat,,a guy pulled in
with a perfect looking,quite large Simplicity riding mower on a trailer behind his pickup,,It may
not have ran,,but everything was there and looked really good..A big claw swung over ,grabbed the
tractor and dumped it on a big pile.....Jeffcat would have cried? I wish I would have had my
camera,but youll have to believe me just this once,,,lol
 
Yesterday at the scrapyard I saw a heaping 16 foot trailer load of bicycles come in all tangled up like spaghetti. I wondered where they came up with all those bikes here in rural Iowa.
 
Last year's "every kid got to have a bike". When I/We were kids you were fortunate to have one bike for your childhood and they were treated rough. However, Western Auto store had every part, piece by piece, to keep it going. That said, no full pedals, fenders and sometimes brakes were not replaced.
 
On past trips to the salvage yard I've seen vintage motorcycles sticking out of the pile. Probably only good for parts, but I always think of the Thanksgiving bird: Someone can always find one more bit to carve off the carcass.
 
Like u said I had one bic my whole youth, as a matter of fact it was a used full sized (believe they were ?28? inch) and I couldn?t reach the pedals so dad took it somewhere where they cut the end of the bars and bent them down and rewelded them!!! It was a used bic when got (xmas) it but it had been repainted!!! They had the big wide tires which was good living in the country and sandy soil too boot!!! But like everything else back then they were built and lasted forever!!!! Course you didn?t have ?gears? or hand brakes and such to worry about either!!!! They went as fast as you pedaled!!!
 
Little town just south of here, there was a bicycle shop, built out over a creek, the back of the building was on stilts.

There was a pile of tangled bicycles thrown off the creek bank, probably 20 feet to the bottom, then piled as high as they could be thrown on top! Thousands of them, probably some real antiques at the bottom.

They're all gone now, the shop is something else. I often wonder if it was gone through, or just scrapped.
 
If they were anything like this kid's bike I have in my garage that I'm supposed to be fixing for my nephew, you can't get parts for them.

It has oddball 8mm crank bearings that nobody seems to have.
 
Everything except for a Schwinn. I had a J.C. Higgins 26" bike that still had a 1934 metal license plate fastened with a seal and I (like a dummy) traded to a feller for a 26" Schwinn 3 speed. Gave him $10.00 boot. Front wheel bearings were replaced 2 and 3 time every year. Schwinn had parts made that were 'one off', just as Gravely did, forcing you to go to the dealer. Fine, if you have access to a dealer; not good at all if nearly everything purchased came from Sears, Wards, or Western Auto.
 

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