by Dennis Andrews
This past Saturday I took a walk in the woods to talk with God and clear my head. It was an area that I had been to many times but it seemed different that day. As a boy I used to walk the path through these woods from our back yard to my great grandparents house but the path is no longer visible. The place I grew up on is no longer in the family so I stopped at the property line and tried to remember where the path was but the back side of the plot had been cleared years ago.
My mind went back to 1964, I bound out the back door jumped off the porch and ran past the swing set headed straight for the corner of the yard and the path entrance. I stopped to pick up a stick long enough to clear the spider webs from the path ahead of me. Only a few yards down the path it turned to the right were a '56 Chevy 2 door sat on the left. Green and white, it was to have been a race car but was left in the woods when a '57 Chevy was found. Just past the '56 the path jogged back to the left and just off to the right sat a blue and white '55 Chevy, Dad's first late model race car. Setting on blocks she had no engine, running gear, seat, steering wheel or front suspension, just a shell on the frame and a home made roll cage but the red dirt, dents and tire marks made me stop and study the car most every time we passed by. She was only a couple of years removed from competition so the weeds, briers and saplings had not yet made access to her difficult. The little red running lights still sat on each side of the shelf under where the back glass was before being removed for racing. My brother Keith and I imagined we raced many laps with that old car.
Back on the path I pass the trail that led to a old garden spot and then around a long right hand bend (that we later learned could be taken wide open on a mini bike) and up the hill to grand ma's. Yes they were actually great grand parents but we just called them grand ma and grand pa.
Back to present day I turned and walked along the fence at the edge of the clearing until I got to the corner of the lot. On both sides of the fence were five hunks of mangled, rusted steel. At first glance you couldn't tell what they were then it hit me. Could it be '55 and '56 Chevy remains? It couldn't be, both cars were bull dozed and burned when the back part of the lot had been cleared over 30 years ago. I looked closer and made out the drivers side door jam sans hinges and followed along the twisted windshield frame until it became unrecognizable. No way I could tell if it was the '55 or '56 but it was one of them. Another hunk of bent, rusted steel had the shell of a running light still attached, that was the '55. The rest was just a mass of rusted, mangled, torn metal. Could not tell what part of the car it came from except for what I thought looked something like the area around a tail light. No sign of a frame or roll cage, must have been separated from the sheet metal and buried. Wow, sad and exciting, sad to see the dead and decaying remains and yet exciting to explore the wreckage for clues to its identity.
Growing up in N.C. it was common to see old race cars sitting behind garages, barns, houses and the edge of fields or woods. No one paid them much attention, just old race cars. Man if we have just been more like Billy Biscoe and saved a few of them. We only have part of the body of one of dad's old cars. For years a '37 Ford 2 door straight back coach lay on its drivers side behind my grandfather's garage. That is how it had been left when the engine, transmission, front and rear axles (the only things thought to be of value) were cut out from underneath it. The left side rusted away. When 64 was four laned in front of the garage dad had to move the business. He cut the right side of the car away and carried it to the new shop. One day we hope to incorporate it into a mural on the side of the shop. Looking back over the years I can remember cars that were totally used up, nothing but a few engine parts worth more than scrap. Some were sold, some were scrapped, some were abandoned. None were kept. But we still have our memories.
