From West by Northwest.org Voices of Spencer Creek Norm's Notebook: Saving Fish Creek, One Dead Car at a Time By Norm Maxwell May 2, 2005 Yesterday was Earth Day. The evening before E. D. at close of business, Rob, the fisheries guy, reported that some elbow had attempted to push an old heapy Ford station wagon with no license plates into Fish Creek a few miles west of Triangle Lake. Fish Creek is a good fifty miles from the Eugene District office. Off I went on another dead car rescue. It is very scenic out past Cheshire and Blachly and the traffic is thin. Everything is bright green and growing rapidly. Fat people on riding lawnmowers are out in force. I always scan fields and houses populated with dead cars with a professional eye as I drive by. When a junker that has been settling into the ground for decades goes missing and then suddenly turns up on federal land, I can make a case if I can remember where it came from. I turned off Highway 36 and sure enough, half a mile up Fish Creek there hung a white mid-size Ford wagon on the steep berm with its tailgate nearly in the creek and its front bumper below pavement level. Somebody had carefully smashed every bit of glass with rocks in the 20 year old car. I parked and broke out my huge collapsible SLOW signs and deployed one a hundred meters upstream and another a hundred meters downstream of my work site. The signs are at least four feet across on heavy orange reflective vinyl that clip on fiberglass laths that fold out into an X and one leg snaps into a four-legged base that also fold down compactly. When the wind blows, the huge signs act as sails and you have to pile rocks on their feet to keep them upright. Fish Creek Road can be heavily traveled and I hate to have traffic stack up when I have the road blocked as I remove a junk car. Normally, the instant you have your rig across the road, cars and log trucks immediately materialize and need to get by RIGHT NOW. Worse, some people feel that they have stumbled upon a free entertainment event and want to interact by rendering words of wisdom about the time when they and Billy Bob towed some junk car (probably out in the woods to dump) and telling me how to do my job. I find it almost amusing when Bubba has a brilliant idea on how I should rig up to haul the heap up on the road and it was exactly what I was starting to do before he got underfoot. I jackknifed the Expedition and trailer across the blacktop and chained a heavy block to the white car's front torsion bar. The rear facing winch's main line went through the block and got chained to the base of the winch mount. Rock scotches behind the wheels, and here goes. I thumbed the toggle switch for the 16,500 pound winch and it tilted the bed on the trailer and effortlessly reeled the Expedition/trailer outfit backwards to the car, stones and all. Amazingly there are no log trucks or rubbernecks yet. I look around and find a big log positioned on the uphill side of the road. Two 12 foot tow chains hook together and go around the three foot log and attach to one of the big D rings welded on the side of the dead car trailer. I try again and the trailer skids backwards until the chain comes tight. The log budges but so does the old car. The low angle of the winch is pulling the car into the bank instead of up it. I resort to the time tested tactic of jacking up the front of the heap with a handyman jack and then working the winch until it pulls the car ahead enough so that the jack falls down. Six inches. Another six inches. A foot. A foot and a half. The V-6 front end of the heap is now on the pavement. The wreck is missing a wheel and the other three have flat tires so the car acts as a bulldozer and pushes an impressive amount of loose dirt and rock before it onto the macadam. Still no traffic. I am amazed. I take the time to spray paint BLM 439 & EARTH DAY 05 on the faded white car with yellow citrus oil based paint. I photograph the ruined Ford with the disposable camera I use for documenting my "finds" and assess the situation. The station wagon is lying at an angle to the trailer. It needs to be lined up with it. Of course the car has a locking ignition and the flat front wheels are turned to the left. The elbow who dumped it took the key. Rather than disconnect the rigging from the car and trying to reposition the trailer, I elect to employ the two-ton "come-along" I carry in the trailer gear box. There is a handy alder tree 90 degrees to the side of the white Ford and I move the chains from the log to the tree and hook on the "come-along" between the chain and the rear axle. Click-click goes the ratchet mechanism until everything comes tight and the stern of the old car slides sideways three feet to where I want it. Still no traffic. I can see both SLOW signs from where I am working. Fish Creek, named for the health salmon run still here, babbles happily. Bright spring sun filters through the fresh green maple leaves above. I take the time to remove the 200 pounds of rocks used to smash the windows of the car and return them alongside the road. Broken glass is everywhere inside the car and I move carefully with leather gloves. I clip the bull hook on the left front suspension of the old car to compensate for the front wheels being locked and thumb the control. The big Warn winch rolls smoothly and the old car slides easily up the scarred steel trailer deck like the hundreds before it. The flat tires wobble and make scrunching noises as they resist the counteraction of the winch until the car passes the center of gravity and the deck clangs level. I pin the trailer deck and gather my far flung gear and kick the dirt and rocks off the road before moving my 35 foot outfit off the road into a wide spot. Forty-six minutes... Not one vehicle showed the whole time I was blocking the road. I drink some water before retrieving my road signs and stowing them in the back seat. For a dead car remover, every day is Earth Day. Norm Copyright © 2004 by Norm Maxwell Norm Maxwell is a regular contributor to West By Northwest.org. Norm Maxwell received the 2004 Best of West By Northwest award for his article, The Fire of South Canyon: Remembering Storm King. Tens of thousands of readers have "voted" with their mouse by their selection of this story. Visit Norm Maxwell's other pieces about land use, firefighting and life in the country and more at West By Northwest.org. 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