Section10

No. There's just an axle with a gigantic differential.

I like the look of wooden spoke car wheels and I try to photograph them when I can. Also what's left of a Velie car that had been turned into a buzz saw rig. When I was a kid my neighbor had one made from a Star car that I used to help him saw wood with. Western end of Michigan's upper peninsula.

I had a Dodge pickup like that. Mine was an automatic with the shifting lever sticking out horizontally from the dashboard and you moved it up and down in a vertical slot. It was great.

Not so necessary now, but I had two 50's Jeeps without power steering and both had these knobs. Made steering a bit easier.

I always kind of assumed they were illegal, but I got stopped once with one on my Jeep steering wheel and the cop looked right at it and ignored it. A couple years ago I asked the sheriff who is a friend of mine if they were illegal and he said not as far as he knew.

IN the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

I have a suicide knob that is made for that kind of steering wheel.

Don't know what this was either. In my list of old car pictures I call it the goldenrod car.

Nice fender ornament. Not sure what it's from.

What was this before it became a tractor? I found this out in the countryside in the western end of the Michigan upper peninsula. I have owned two other ones.

West end of Michigan upper peninsula.

Found this at an old railroad siding called Duke in the western UP Michigan. Pretty hard to identify. Probably was an old logging truck. There was a sawmill here a long time ago.

This bus was a long way from anywhere. Alongside a grassy two-track trail. I'm sure some logger used it as a place to warm up at lunch time in the winter. Old busses were commonly fitted with a wood stove and remodeled into a logger's lunch shack and you run across them fairly often parked way back in the woods. This one was pretty far back. Michigan UP.

I don't know what this was supposed to be but it reminds me of a giant insect emerging out of the ground. Michigan UP.

I suppose you could call me a senior citizen by now. Yet I'm not too ancient. It happened that I grew up in an environment that was largely obsolete even when I was in it. My parents had me late in life and my world was very rural and quiet and almost locked into an earlier generation. Old cars, old boats, old darned near everything. Now new stuff I don't relate to even though I can somewhat run a computer. I am more modern now but even though that old life was harder, it really was better in a subtle way. Very hard to elucidate but still real and I'm old enough to compare the differences. Much of modern is very good but it all comes with a price. Sometimes that price is uncomfortably high. My wife cooked on a wood range from the time she married me. A year and a half ago we gave it up and I still don't think she's forgiven me for it. Old ways get into your blood or it is in your blood from the beginning. Either way, leaving it behind is somewhat painful and I think a person is somewhat poorer after it's gone. There is a lot I know and can do that very few people are aware of or even care much of anymore. The world really has changed.

I grew up in the Upper Michigan back woods and a lot of vehicles had no plates. When I was around 20 I had a 38 ford stake truck that I never licensed and I'd even take it to town occasionally and park on the main street. The starter was shot but it started real good with a hand crank. The good old days of double clutching, mechanical brakes, hand windshield wipers, no directionals and constantly patching tires. Many logging trucks were never licensed because they just traveled from the woods to the nearest railroad siding or sawmill and never saw the highways at all. A guy who lived down the road from my folks had a 24 Ford stake truck that he made wood with. When I got old enough I would go help him and it was a blast bouncing down the woods roads in that thing, although sometimes it got wet or dusty inside because it had no floorboards. Later on he traded it off for a mid 30's Terraplane joker. Which finally broke down in the woods behind my old house and it stayed there for several years. I moved away and I wonder if it's still there.

Found this Buick Roadster with dual side mounts at an abandoned sawmill town called Tula in Michigan's western UP.

Not much chance of identifying this. Probably not a Ford. It was on an Indian Reservation right next to an Indian cemetery. In Michigan UP.

I hate when that happens.

When I photographed this one I did talk to the owners about it so they knew I had noticed it. No idea if it's still there and I won't be back in that area until sometime after the snow melts. May not be impossible to get.

It looks like it should be older than 37. Headlights are mounted different and the roof is open. There was part of another truck here also. The hub cap has an S inside a square box. Would that be Sterling? Located in Michigan UP.

Another Plymouth

Alright. I see now the truck is different. Then I also have taken pictures of what must be a 36 Plymouth panel delivery which I had thought was a dodge. Plymouth trucks are scarcer I believe. I'm learning. It's nice to be able to identify the vehicles in the photos.

Didn't Dodge also have the same grill shape that year? I have a picture of a Dodge Truck with the same grille.

Pretty sure this is a 36 Dodge. In the Michigan UP.