I Miss Junk Yards

Does anyone know if 'pull it yourself' automobile junk yards still exist?

The last one I went into was the old Plateau Wrecking yard in Plateau, Alabama. If my foggy memory serves me, it was on the east side of US Highway 43 just before Papermill Road. I had to go in there to find some used pushrods for my '62 Olds Cutlass.

There was something about dragging your own tools in and hunting down the car you needed so it could give up its parts to keep your ride on the road. You knew that all the cars and trucks there had some serious stories to tell if they could only talk. Each one of them was a brand new vehicle at one time and source of pride for their owners. The bent ones obviously met an untimely end, while the relatively straight ones probably succumbed to some expensive mechanical malady.

Once in a while during my travels for business, I'll run across a scrap yard full of old cars and trucks and I get the urge to stop and take a tour.

Tetanus shots, anyone?