“Rustiques” includes vehicles, farm implements, and other machinery that became too old and retired to pasture or yard. A few are repurposed–e.g., the yellow cab of a truck into a shelter for children waiting for the school bus. A few are obviously on display in honor of past generations, but most are oxidized, battered, even scattered. No ordinance seems to require their removal, no scrap-metal drive urges it. At worst slovenly, at best authentic. For in ever-varying shapes, compositions, and states of decay, they make up a catalogue of site-specific, sub-art installations. Their own tombstones, they seem like metal parallels to the dilapidated wooden houses and outbuildings that embellish the landscape. Do they not mark the continuity of a family? Add up to the museum of a community? The author deemed it pointlessly interesting to photograph these relics with children beside them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Pamela Swortzel, on the Floyd Group Facebook page, identified the remnants in the photograph above as of a Chevrolet truck 1927-1930. Ralph’s wry observation: “With a little bit of restoration, such as patching, sanding, painting, and adding a motor, radiator, crank, pickup bed, transmission, dashboard, seats, rear end, bumpers, and cab it would be a proud classic.” Below is Ralph Roe’s photo of the label affixed to the chassis, worth $50 on eBay.