Historic Hood River
Car Trouble
8-2-2013
Notes
I don’t know if it’s his expression or the corn cob pipe, but I like this early Alva Day image. The license plate dates it to 1917. Does anyone recognize the location?
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Rawhyde
Front wheels seem to be out of alignment. Is he fixing the engine or warming his lunch on it? As the car appears to have been backed in, I presume the latter.
spinsur
Yeah, I’m kind of wondering about lunch, and either using the engine, or using it to light his pipe or campfire. I think that’s a frying pan by his feet, and right front tire. Shovel back in brush behind him. Looks like the front end is held together by the U-bolt that attaches frame to spring to axle, and it is allowed to swing sideways to adjust for uneven ground? Fairly recent forest fire on steep ground in background. Must be river under it, but no idea how local knowing Alva’s travels.
l.e.
Ohhh, I also like this photo.
I am kind of tired and busy this morning, but sat down and opened up this photo and then smiled and kind of relaxed.
The pan could even be for a dog to get a drink. Or maybe he just changed a tire and it was for holding the lug nuts.
Did those old cars have lug nuts?
Looking at his boots, do you think they are in rattle snake country?
charlott
Not saying he wasn’t in snake country, but men wore boots like that. I have seen photos of my own father in boots very much like those.
longshot
Crank hanging out the front for manual starting. What year did Model T’s get an electric starter? I assume it was probably just an option for many years.
No luggage to be seen so maybe he is just on a day trip, but possibly he has already unloaded the car and set up camp? This would help explain having the car backed into the brush, I would doubt that he needed to get the car out of the road to keep from blocking traffic.
Buzz
Worked with an old timber cruiser in summers during high school years. Looked a lot like this guy. Maybe wearing caulk boots and checking out salvage value of burned over timberlands. Most of them had big dogs that accompanied them while working, so pan on the ground for watering dog makes sense. Just a guess.
Jim Gray
I believe 1919 was the first year for the electric starter on the Model T, they did retain the hand crank until the end of production in 1927, no lug nuts on a Model T just a single nut on the spindle.
Connie
Exciting to see this image and all the conversation. Alva Day is one of the people portrayed in this year’s Cemetery Tales at the end of September. And we are looking for a pair of those boots in case anyone has some to gift. Size 10 would be great.
Tom Kloster
Neat photo! I’m going to guess that Alva was on one of the now abandoned roads in the Coe Branch canyon, upstream from Laurance Lake Road (with the west wall of the canyon in the background). Just a guess, but if so, then this area has burned twice over the past century! (this is where the Dollar Lake Fire started in 2011)