One Man's Treasure

Today I went to a junkyard outside Orchards, which is an area on the eastern side of Vancouver, WA. I was looking for a tire and wheel (preferably attached to each other) for my step-father's Ford pickup. His spare tire disappeared about a month ago, around the time one of his nephews headed south to Arizona after laying over at my parents' house for some days. Since the nephew also had a Ford pickup and was lacking a spare tire, we speculated that he might have "unofficially" borrowed my dad's for a while. My brother Gary had bought a tire and wheel at the junkyard, but it didn't fit, so I went to see if I could find another one. I was planning on using the pickup on Friday to collect a refurbished box springs and mattress from the Dixie Mattress Company in Portland, and thought it would be a good idea to have a spare tire. This was not a big deal, except I'm not very mechanical, and found myself a somewhat out of my element in a junkyard. And there were a lot of cars in that junkyard. In spite of being mechanically challenged, I do think I have a talent for finding things. I eventually located a mounted tire that looked promising, loaded it up, and headed for home. Lo and behold--it fit! Happy days! Actually, I liked going to the junkyard. It was a new experience for me and that is what I'm looking for. Also, I am trying to adopt a personal policy of buying used and recycled items as much as possible. Both the junkyard and the Dixie Mattress Company are in harmony with this objective.