“I ain’t never throwed nothin’ away. It’s all here on this property from when I was a kid. I got all the tractors that I ever owned and Model “A” cars and parts everywhere—barrels of ‘em!, barrels of starters and generators, barrels of horns, barrels of carburetors. You fellas are Model “A” people. I’ll sell ‘em to ya. John here will show you around”. Such was proclaimed by Henry the Hoarder, age guessed to be 75-80-90-95. It’s hard to judge the actual age of these old timers. Some of them are really old, others just look old and weathered from a hard life.
We got this tip from a friend who attended an old tractor auction; The seller also had a couple Model “A”s he would depart with and, in his words, “barrels” of parts. He was now in declining health and, presumably through family intervention, decided that it was time to sell off some of his “collection” of antique tractors. I always get a kick out of the advertisers, and PR men promoting upcoming auctions labeling these things as ‘antique collections’ and collectors’ items because it tends to imply that these items were thoughtfully brought together in some kind of systematic order and stored with the intuition that they would appreciate in value. Whenever the word “antique” is added, the price doubles. Don’t get me wrong, there are many museum collections of cars, trucks, and tractors that are exactly that—artistic collections of expensive items. Au Contrare, these tractors, machines, and cars simply wore out, broke down, and were left in the place where they fell for decades and decades. It’s really more like Fossil Butte in Wyoming where eons of dinosaurs lived, died, and were buried in place where they fell, uncovered by weather events and floods.
I noted paranoia on Henry’s part. Aside from the excruciating anxiety of having to depart with things he’s hoarded, somebody possibly stole some tractor parts recently, so we had to communicate through a third-party family member, John, whom we had to meet at his house and be taken over to Henry’s place. Was it a son, a nephew? We don’t know. He was a gruff, stout man of a unique convention and few words. His house and property also contained several old junk trucks and cars on the opposite end of the street. We followed him for half an hour or so over some of the wildest, hilliest, curviest backroads I have ever been on in Ohio to Henry’s place. Was this on purpose? Rest assured, Henry, that I could never retrace the route. And in fact, the Garmin road computer got us lost trying to find our way back to recognizable civilization. Peculiarly, during that ride to Henry’s place, John stopped at a discount gas station so he could buy a Coke??? I noticed that, as he got out of his car to go into the station, he casually scoured the parking lot all around his car and picked up every cigarette butt and put them in his pocket. I did not get the feeling that he was simply being a good Samaritan cleaning up that station or that he needed a Coke!
There we were, in the part of Ohio just an hour and a half from our home that might be considered the beginning of the foothills of the Appalachians. We proceeded a good bit further. The houses dwindled and became ramshackle. Jerry predicted that soon we would be running into tar paper shacks. Damned if we didn’t shortly thereafter come upon an actual old log cabin partly covered in boards and tar paper, smoke rising from the chimney. Scattered around it were scads of piles of junk, old trucks and such. Maybe 75 yards down from it was probably a turn of the century Sears Roebuck catalog house now partly covered with boards, tar paper and whatever. Sears sold lots of these houses in the early 1900s. The prefab kit was delivered to you, and you had to put it together. And you thought that DIY was some recent brainstorm! These houses had a starkly utilitarian style with the second-floor ceilings being lower than the first-floor ceilings. I’ve encountered them many times in the country well away from cities. A Model “A” was indeed parked in front of the house. This was obviously an old farmstead with a dozen or so long-ago whitewashed outbuildings scattered beside and behind the house also in great disrepair if not falling down. And there was junk, hordes of junk, piles of junk, every conceivable piece of junk scattered about the acre that the farmstead sat on. Nothing had ever left the property. If it didn’t hit the burn barrel, it was cast aside on the property. I had seen places like this in both Rhode Island and southern Ohio when we were first married fifty some years ago. I was stationed at Davisville/Quonset Point Rhode Island for about 18 months during the Viet Nam War. My wife and I would hike and camp throughout this part of Rhode Island. It was not at all prosperous then, being in the midst of a great decline in fishing. The military was what kept the economy going. Likewise southeastern Ohio is, economically less prosperous save for a few bright spots like Athens, where Ohio University is located, and Athens State Hospital. We lived and worked there while we finished up our degrees after I got out of the Navy.
We pulled into an overgrown, dirt driveway that led to the farm buildings. A second one led to the house. Interspersed among the buildings were myriads, piles of machinery, some farm oriented, other things God knows what. Jerry said that some of it was oilers—things that dripped oil at a certain rate on……..gears, shafts, primitive machinery from turn-of-the-century. A couple things he recognized as hit or miss engines, gears and parts thereof. I was able to identify the remains of an old stationary bike sitting in a briar patch between two outbuildings. An old, once substantial fiberglass boat was on its side nearby. John showed us a locked outbuilding. What was in it? The rest of the buildings could not be locked because they were all missing a door, windows, or in some cases the whole side of the building. Most were filled with decrepit farm machinery and piles of iron and steel things. Some were recognizable, other things were now lost to history. The farmstead was overgrown and piled up hither, thither and yon, to the point where I simply could not walk, so I relied on Jerry to get into and around many of the places. John made sure we saw a feed shed with the rusted down to the ground hulk of a Model “A” Coupe, one of two Model “A”s that Henry was intent on selling us. The steel wheels were rusted off in half. No amount of pushing or pulling was going to roll this car anywhere! I could not see the front of the car. Jerry went and looked while I stood and got the trunk open to see…… the barn floor and piles of tobacco cans, garbage, junk and such. There was no interior or floor left to the car. Jerry confirmed that the front-end view was equally unpleasant. The price on that car was 7K. Jerry got a better look at the front yard Model “A”. I couldn’t get near it. The exterior was rough but recognizable. There was no interior or transmission. It was on inflated tires though. The price was also astronomical at 12K. It occurred to me that Henry tended to mix up the current times with the past, when these cars were up and running. Was this delusions, time warps in Henry’s thought process? “ Clean it up with a little kerosene and it will shine like new”, Henry exclaimed. John then led us to the, and I use the word loosely……… living quarters, house.
to be continued…
