This article was published in “Appalachian Voices,” Winter 2001
I met Buford by accident. The tires on my Land Cruiser had seen too many years of sun. One of them was bubbling and another’s tread was peeling away from the casing. I was a fresh college graduate, barely self-employed, and couldn’t afford new ones. I spent the better part of a day walking out of high-priced tire shops when one of the salesmen whispered that I should go down to McCoy Garage and get some retreads. I was surprised to find it less than a hundred yards from a country road that I traveled regularly.
Five years later I took my camera back to Buford’s.
“Did you ever wonder where all the dust goes,” he asked as I ran my fingers over a stack of recapped tires? I didn’t quite understand him. We just began speaking and it usually took me some time to get accustomed to his thick southern accent. I shook my head in dismay.
“The tire dust,” he said, as if it should be obvious.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Do you know where all the tire dust goes,” he repeated.
He pointed to my fingers, which were now lodged in a tread. This time I made the connection. He was talking about the tiny particles of rubber that slough off as the tires wear, the minute bits of black floating aimlessly about our roadways.
“There must be two pounds of dust in every one of them-there tires.,” he continued, “That’s a lot of dust. With millions of tires out, there the dust must go somewhere.” He paused; I nodded. “I reckon it all washes away, ” he said and flashed me his signature grin that, almost reflexively, followed everything he said.
I have contemplated countless things in my thirty-five years, but I must confess that I have never wondered where all the tire dust goes. Until that moment, I had never pondered the existence of tire dust. However, if I measured the amount of tire dust in an average tire, I trusted it would come out to two pounds just like Buford said. He had changed too many tires not to know the difference between a fresh one and a bald one.
Buford is eighty-seven and still works six days a week. His tire changer is his throne. He sits atop of it, stares out over the cowfields, and waits for somebody to drive up. I imagine he smiles even when alone. I do not think it matters to him anymore if people buy anything or not; he’s glad just to have someone there.
Buford has had a prosthetic leg since loosing it to osteomyleitis in the pre-penicillin era. After eighty-seven years his body is weary. Not surprisingly, as the years go by Buford changes fewer and fewer tires. He ambles along pretty well when upright, but he can hardly bend over to pull a tire anymore. His car lift is either too broken or too busy storing retreads to provide any relief.
So, if you need tires and are willing to help change them, he will put you to work. Most people don’t mind though, it’s part of the experience. I always felt a greater connection to my tires when I bought them from him.
Albert Hamlin was a dear friend of Buford’s. I doubt either of them could out-grin the other in a smiling contest. Albert said they had seen each other just about every day of their adult lives. Albert stopped by the garage to see Buford that day. The previous year Albert’s wife died and when he said ‘the cancer got her,’ I saw in his eyes how incomplete he was without her.
“You want to see my dogs?” Albert asked me.
“Sure, but I don’t think I can do it today,” I replied.
“Right over here,” Albert said. Hardly bending his knees to walk, he led me toward his pickup. In the cab were two little brown dogs. As we approached one jumped up against the passenger window, the other took the drivers side. Albert told me they were his wife’s dogs. I didn’t ask, but I had the feeling he took them everywhere since her death. Buford told me that when Albert’s wife died, “it nearly killed Albert.” Albert must have agreed; he joined her about a year later.
Not surprisingly, much of the conversation at the garage was about tires. Among the piles of discarded tires, I noticed one that was missing a four-by-six inch piece of sidewall. I asked Buford about the missing square.
“People use tires for everything. I cut that patch out to use it as a cushion for my jack,” he said. Then he proceeded to tell me some of the tire oddities he had seen.
“Some guys used to run two tires.”
Wondering how a two-axle car could only have two tires was beyond me. “How’s that?” I said.
“Tire in a tire.”
As a teenager I had fixed tractor tires innertubes, but I had never seen a “tire in a tire.” I couldn’t fathom why someone would want to do such a thing; the resulting contraption had to produce a shuddering ride. How would someone get two tires on one rim anyway?
Buford continued, “During the war, tires were rationed. You couldn’t get them. Some tires would be patched so many times that you couldn’t fix them anymore. Guys would get a little old tire and a big old tire and I’d mount the little one inside the big one. You couldn’t get good tires with the war going on, so that’s what you had to do - two tires” I guess the two-tire sandwiches, even without the air, were more comfortable than riding on the rims.
“Some guys would swap cars just to get one with better tires, even if the deal was lopsided,” he said.
Around this time the telephone rang. Buford had it rigged to one of those metallic bells amplifiers, loud enough to wake cows three fields over. I was surprised it still worked. Nevertheless, the amplifier didn’t seem to make much difference. The phone rang, and rang, and rang again. Buford continued to tell Albert and me about the guys who swapped good cars with bad tires for worse cars with better tires. Neither of them could hear the phone.
“Buford,” I said, “the phone’s ringing!”
This startled him. He made a hip motion like he was going to make a break for it. We were fifteen yards from the phone. He’d never get there in time.
“You want me to get it?” I said, hoping he’d say yes.
“Yezzz Sir,” he replied. He called every man sir, even those of us who barely could grow a beard.
I ran over, picked up the big black rotary receiver, and conjured up my best rendition of a southern accent, “McCoy Garage, may I help you,” It was a hopelessly inadequate attempt: I didn’t sound anything like Buford.
The shop was listed as “McCoy Garage” in the phone book, but everybody called it Buford’s, which was more appropriate because he was, and had been, the owner and sole employee for years. McCoy Garage sounded nobler, but Buford’s fit better.
Long ago, Buford’s was a complete service shop. Now he only sells tires, batteries, and cola’s. In the sixty years he has owned the garage, it became one of the few social centers in the small community. Lifetimes of stories were exchanged there. People would stop in for gas and stick around to swap “stories.” Not surprisingly, most were men. Between the tire carcasses, the smell of auto grime, and sixty years of general disarray, few women stayed any longer than necessary. Women were welcome, but Buford’s was a man’s place - not by decree but by default.
This Saturday morning was like most others. People came and went. One man stopped and told Buford of a recent death in the community. A few got gasoline. One man picked up Buford’s grocery list and returned 45 minutes later with milk for Buford’s wife.
Albert and I talked. I heard stories about life in the area and ran several rolls of film through my old Minolta. Each man joked about how my camera would break when I took the other men’s pictures. They all laughed each time one of them repeated the broken camera joke. Eventually everyone left and Buford and I were alone at the shop.
I imagine that little time will pass between the time when Buford stops working and stops breathing. When Buford goes, the garage will go, too. I doubt anybody is lining up to buy it and would be surprised if it had much value. Even if someone did, it would not be the same without Buford. Buford’s work is so integrated with his very being that the later cannot exist apart from the former. Buford’s is a place where man and labor have melted into one.
When Buford passes, the little community will lose more than just a stop for inexpensive tires and convenient gasoline - it will lose a meeting place where community history is passed from person to person. The stories exchanged, repeated, and embellished between people at Buford’s will be frozen in time. Friendships will have to be made and kept elsewhere: people will have to find other places to convene. In this role, Buford transcended the garage and became something greater. Although he never intentionally set out to do so, Buford and his shop became one of the threads that served to bind together and sustain the people of McCoy.
On the day the people of McCoy lose Buford, they also will lose a small piece of their sense of community. I am not sure if they realize it yet.
Jon E. Fritsch has taught photojournalism in Eastern Europe for a university study abroad program. His goal is to teach his students the complex art of understanding people by the simple act of looking through a camera lens.
Tags: assignment writing, Buford, documentary photography, photostory, southwest Virginia, tires
