TOWNSHEND — Somewhere near you there is a junkyard. You may have never been there, which is a shame, because a junkyard is something worth seeing. Each one is a world unto itself, a monument to the American spirit.
Like people, junkyards have their own personalities. Some are neat and organized, with rows or vehicles in engineer-straight rows. They have computers and even offer warranties. Others are old school, with piles of cars stacked on one another.
These days, some of them have become fearful of lawsuits and have stopped letting people into the yard. There used to be one like that in Maine. It was a huge place, the size of a small town, but they wouldn't let you in. You had to go to the office and tell them what you wanted, which sort of ruined the whole experience. As they say, looking is half the fun.
Once, I spent part of a day looking for a set of rims at a large salvage yard. They let me loose out back, and I wandered through a maze of dirt roads carpeted with broken glass. The sky was iron gray, and an air wrench chanted a prayer for the dead.
* * *
There is something slightly sinister about junkyards. It is, after all, where old cars go to die. Many of them were smashed up in accidents, and someone had to have died in some of them.
Jimmy Hoffa is rumored to have taken a ride through a car crusher in the trunk of a Cadillac. A car crusher is a fearsome thing. It can reduce a large car to a crumpled slab of metal in a few seconds.
Once I saw a trainload of thousands of crushed, rusted-out Fords and Chevys heading south. It was a sad and awesome sight.
There is some consolation, though. Many of those old cars come back as Toyotas or Subarus.
* * *
Every salvage yard is a small kingdom. The owner of a junkyard is lord and master of his realm.
Once, I saw a long line of Spanish-speaking men standing in front of a junkyard owner's desk, which was piled high with carburetors and old radios. He dealt with his customers like a magistrate clearing his docket.
“A '76 Oldsmobile? That's what you're working on? Ya gotta be kidding,” he said.
But they needed the parts, and the price was right.
Junkyards used to get their cars for free, so they sold dirt cheap. That way, people kept their rigs running on used parts. You could get a battery for $20, a radiator for $30.
One junkyard in Connecticut used to have a sale every year: 25 bucks for all the parts you could carry.
Of course, there is a down side. You don't really know if what you are buying is any good. But that is part of the charm.
If you are really adventurous, you can buy your next car at a junkyard. It might need a little bit of work.
* * *
There is a subtle etiquette to showing up at a salvage yard.
You aren't supposed to ask to borrow tools, and if they let you remove parts, you have an obligation to do as little damage as possible. As the saying goes, “If you don't take it off with a hatchet, it's easier to reattach it.”
That's a sentiment that transplant surgeons everywhere should agree with.
* * *
All of us carry an organ-donor card on the back of our driver's license, reminding us of the junkyard saying, “parts are parts.”
Someday, someone else might be riding around with our heart or kidney.
As they say, everybody rides on used parts.