781 Junk Shot.

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I have a feeling that this page is going to confuse people.  I tried to draw the car turning in to the junkyard, but it looked wrong no matter what I tried.  More wrong than it does from the side anyway.  Thomas doesn’t just stop on the side of the road.  He pulls in and nestles the car amongst the other crap.

I’m not sure about other places, but it’s really common for people to just park old stuff on the edges of fields and leave it to rot in Kansas and eastern Colorado.  I assume that it’s like that in any rural area of the country, but I don’t know it for certain.  In fact, in this part of Colorado people just tip old cars and stuff into ditches and rivers and wander off, never to return.  There’s a creek near my home where you can see old cars half buried under years of sediment.  Up the road a bit there’s a deeper ditch where people have been pitching in old appliances and whatnot for what appears to be generations.  Recycling has not quite taken hold out here…

An industrious person with time and a wrecker could probably make a fair bit of money gathering scrap from the ditches.  Of course once someone else showed interest in the trash the locals would likely get real possessive.   They’re too lazy to dispose of things properly, but too mercenary to let you make a buck for cleaning shit up.  It’s actually kind of factionalized.  Because some places are crapshacks and others are little oases of order and cleanliness.

I used to think that Kansas was pretty trashy, but by comparison it’s a gleaming monument to order and tidiness.  Which is saying something if you’re familiar with Kansas at all.  I’m not sure what Colorado is like further in.  I’ve only ever been a few times and not for any length of time.  I understand that some cities are very upper crust.  Like, stars go there to fart around and whatnot.  I’m told Denver is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, with the added annoyance of thin atmosphere.  I’m too fond of gasses to do any personal recon.  It takes a lot of oxygen to keep me moving.

29 Comments

I think the page looks fine, I think what you were looking for was like making the front wheel all black so that it looks like it’s only the tire, as in, the wheel is turned in the direction of the junkyard.

I had always, from your comments, assumed that you lived in Kansas, now you say that you live in Eastern Colorado. Would that then be someplace like Burlington or Lamar?

I’m currently living in Douglas County.

Haven’t been to Colorado in over a decade, but I recall Lamar as being a place where (rumor had it) you could get a transgender surgery without too much fuss or too many questions. Never particularly placed any stock in the rumors, nor cared really, but I figured I’d mention it anyway… er… because of becausifness.

Or maybe just ‘At least we aren’t there’ nostalgia. Then again, I spent most of my time near Walsenberg and San Isabel (lovely little state-park/tourist area the latter. Tiny little town near where I worked summers the former)

Denver is a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Colorado Springs (or The Springs as they oh so annoyingly call it as if it’s the only city in the world with “Springs” as part of its name) is better, but not much.

Pueblo is … well… There. However, it is home to the restaurant with the greatest green chile in the world. Or at least it was about fifteen years ago.

People all over the country just ditch junk and let it sit. Arlo Guthrie did a movie I can’t remember the name of where some of their junk rolls into a pile of other junk, but they got caught so they end up having to pick up all their junk AND the junk that was there originally (no, that wasn’t the plot, just something that happened in the movie). There was a sinkhole central to the plot of The Lovely Bones, although it only showed up a few times, and I think that movie was supposed to be in Illinois, but my brain was rebelling against my watching it, so I don’t properly recall. The sinkhole was used as a rubbish pit where people dumped old appliances and what-not. And I definitely recall a few places in Pennsylvania and New York state that had dumping grounds, admittedly most of them someone’s private property, along with legitimate dumps.

I am currently living in Nebraska, and while you aren’t supposed to, many people dump whatever on the side of no-maintenance roads (a quaint rural idea where there’s a road acknowledged by the government and not someone’s private road, but they don’t actually do anything about it. Including making it level. Or drivable. My sister’s husband once got high-centered on one in a 4 wheel drive truck with over a foot and a half of clearance. Sometimes I walk along one of these roads looking for old bottles and late seventies pull tabs (Mat Broderick’s character uses one to short a telephone in Wargames, if you’re too young to know what I’m talking about. Dazed and Confused didn’t do half as good a job showing the can tops they had then. And steel, not aluminum). Mostly I use them to make my Necrons look Necronier, but the bottles I like to wash and look at. Old glass am pretty…

Arlo Guthrie did the song “Alice’s Restaurant” first. It’s like 30 minutes long – the whole side of an LP for those of you who know of such things. Later he made a movie of it. Interesting because there is a scene at the bedside of his real life father, the greatest American singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie.

Since the story stakes place around Thanksgiving, playing the song is an annual tradition on some radio stations.

As for dumping junk cars, etc. in the woods,, gullies, etc., it’s less of a tradition here in upstate tNY than it used to be. But you sure can find old stuff without looking too hard.

Yes. As a matter of fact “junking as it is commonly known in my area can gain you a pretty penny if you are good at it. I have friends who make their entire living out of scrap metal. Of all the people to get possessive over junk the city will fine you if you are caught by an officer removing metal or any other items off the curb on trash day even if the resident who put it there is there to vouch that you are allowed to take it. And here we thought the political officials were supposed to be concerned with jobs and a clean environment… can we say pad the pork barrel…

They even claim once a resident puts trash out to be collected it becomes property of the city…LOL

You can get arrested for stealing trash in NYC, too. Although since people still insist on telling cashiers to throw away their receipts after having paid via credit card, at least there’s SOME rationale for it. Other valuable trash items include stripped books, not stripped books, anything thrown out of a house/apartment that’s being demolished/renovated, deposit bottles (and cans), repairable small appliances. I used to sneak into the big construction dumpsters to get materials for handyman work. I got fired for taking stripped books out of the trash where I worked rather than buy a book I wouldn’t have otherwise bought (I like to read, all we really carried was romance novels. Wouldn’t buy the things, but I’ll read them. Also occasionally liked just one picture out of a magazine, although they didn’t catch that…)

The bottom dropped out of the scrap metal business a while back, about three years ago. Then it picked up again. Who knows if it’s back. Locally there’s at least one guy who brings in over three tons of scrap iron a day, plus other assorted metals, and gets paid for it twice. Once from the farmer who wants it hauled away, and once more at the scrapyard. Of course he’s been doing it for years… Healthy profit to be made in Junking if you know how, but it can be hard work, too. Say, knocking all the dirt off three tons of scrap iron, sorting it, and then hauling it someplace (especially if you pop a tire).

About 3 years ago one of my friends made 30,000 that year on trash from the curb alone. I have myself refurbished and sold many computers I got off the curb. (completely wiped of all data of course.) If there is any way a poor person could scrape out a living the government will try to squash it, tax it or, make requirements for it so only people with connections will be able to profit at all.

I thought any trash, as long as it does not remain on the property, is free game. I may watch too many cop shows though…

All rules are dependant on the place where you are. I heard a rumor that in some areas you can even “junk” abandon cars if they have been tagged by the state. Others that’s GTA.

I live in Eastern Colorado, Greeley to be precise, but I’ve traveled through Nebraska, Kansas, and small towns in Eastern Colorado. From Fleming to Holyoke, Fort Morgan, through Yuma, Brush, and the border town of Wray, and along I-70 E, and I’ve never seen anyone stack junk on the side of the road. Maybe I’m not looking hard enough.

Is it a habit of all comic readers to start thinking about who will pair off in a comic? My gaydar twinges a bit when I think of Brooksie, and Jessie seems an experimental type…

Just a thought.

very little will be on the interstate highways. key wording “Dirt road” notice henchman21 said,”My sister’s husband once got high-centered (bottomed out with all 4 wheels in the air.) on one in a 4 wheel drive truck with over a foot and a half of clearance.” these places are not paved, not well traveled and, surrounded by corn or soy beans.

Here in North Carolina, anyplace thats not in one of the cities (Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Wilmington and Winston Salem) has more trash scattered about then there are blades of grass in the world, mostly from rednecks throwing the crud out there truck windows

its the same way here in South Carolina, hell there’s a guy next door that has a slowly imploding trailer on his property

Thomas’s plan may backfire if whoever is in pursuit investigates on foot, fresh tire tracks and warm engine do not a junk car make, or worse yet it could be rednecks come to shoot stuffs

Nah, the page is perfectly understandable. Before reading your remark, I had already assumed he was pulling in there with a plan to hide his old car before I read his plan to do so. When he said what he was doing, I pretty much made the connection that he had done it, so it’s perfect!

Anyway, there’s a creek by my Dad’s house, which was the house I grew up in. That place was always piled with junk, and you could see some things sticking out of the water sometimes. One time my dad and brother’s bikes were stolen from the back yard, and they noticed that a bike handle was sticking out of the water in the creek. They threw out a rope (you never see any good lassoing outside of cartoons, usually) and pulled it out, but it ended up not being either of thier bikes – however, there was a second bike attached to the one sticking out! Crazy thing was that they weren’t in bad shape. They hosed ’em down and took them to a bike shop for fixing, and ended up using one of ’em for awhile (the second one they just left at the shop ’cause my brother didn’t want to ride a creek bike). All’s well that ends…strange.

Crave–

Brilliant, hiding in plain sight in the junkyard!

Oh. and by the way, I think you’re drawing a 1941 Packard Coupe.

Kansas does not have a patent on leaving stuff to rust and rot. Here in the great state of Connecticut (well, one could argue that it’s a greater state than some) I live in the trans-burbs, the area past the suburbs and into the cowpat-kicking territories. It’s common behavior to leave heavy equipment sitting at the edge of the field at the end of the season, replaced or even broken down. I know of several newer houses that sit on old junkyards that I patronized in the past. They just haul off the hulks and build — and drill a well. (“Can you say Superfund site? Sure you can!”) Then the new residents wonder why Johnny can’t breed.

–Perfesser

Down here in GA it’s the same. In fact, there’s a whole gully out at my grandfather’s filled with tons of junk (but no cars). In fact, we still deposit stuff in there. I’ve even seen a toilet. The most recent deposit was probably over two tons of unused marble and granite. Believe it or not, this helps prevent erosion.

I live in Glendale (SE-ish Denver), and I guess the area’s good to me because I rarely leave home… if it is bad around here, I really wouldn’t know it… I live near Infinity Park, and thus near the police station/fire station, and that might contribute to it as well. I love where I live because everything’s close, and no one knows my name… I’ve lived in a lot of places, so I don’t have that “home” attachment to anything except whatever power outlet my desktop is currently connected to… Cyberspace is more a hometown to me than any place I’ve ever lived, heh.

I guess it’s because of my largely-cyber lifestyle that Denver appeals to me: no real travel time, anonymity in all but the places I frequent most (The guys at Gamestop and my local retro-gaming store both know me by name and calsign). Even if it’s got a lot of scum and villainy, I don’t see any of it, if because it’d happen largely outside my mostly-sound-proofed apartment.

Living right on the edge of Missouri/Kansas/Oklahoma, I can attest to this. I mean, I’ve personally GIVEN away 2 cars in my lifetime (“Free manual. Comes with car.”) just to get them the hell out of my yard.

Trivia note: Arlo Guthrie’s movie was called “Alice’s Restaurant” and was based on an actual 1965 incident which his song, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” (pronounced mass-a-cree), memorializes. Guthrie and his friends throw a bunch garbage they had loaded into his VW minivan onto an existing pile of garbage they find in the Massachusetts countryside because the dump was closed for Thanksgiving, but they end up being arrested for littering and have to clean up the garbage. Later, Guthrie is called up for the draft, but is found to be morally unfit to serve in the Army because of his conviction for littering.

“the 8 and a half by eleven color GLOSSY pictures, with the circles and the arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was” — my favorite line
It was a Thanksgiving tradition (because the radio played it…). Damn, I love that song, though.

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