By Buster McNutt
We’re still a few weeks away from the start of the NFL Concussion Ball season, so let’s talk about retread tires instead. Time was when over 20 percent of passenger car tires were retreads, which were about half the price of new tires, and made in the USA by English-as-first-language workers. Whenever you bought new tires, you were required to turn in your “retreadable tires” as part of the deal. It was mandatory recycling, 100-percent legal, and kept used tires off the market. It was a sweet setup. Then came (stop me if you’ve heard this before) cheap imports at about the same price as American labor retreads, and it was game over for retreads. Americans Wal-Mart-voted with their wallets for the cheaper imports. I could have said “voted with their pocketbooks,” but back then men bought 90-something percent of the family tires, and pocketbook toting men, well, lets just say they weren’t looked on as “kindly” as they are today. Now pretty much only the big rigs use retreads, and based on how the rest of us have to keep playing dodge ball with their spit out carcasses on the interstate, I’m thinking that’s not going to change anytime soon.
I mention this because I happen to have a particularly large section of a retread tire in the back of the F-150 at this time. I picked it up from — you guessed it — the side of the interstate where, apparently, retread tractor trailer tires go to die. Sort of like a vulcanized elephants burial ground, and no I’m not talking about elephants with pointy ears named Spock. As I recall from General Science class at good old Antioch High, vulcanization is the process of taking flimsy rubber tree tire carcasses and lowering them into volcanoes, where the gazillion degree sulfur hardens them and shapes them into various size tires. This was accidently discovered in 1896 by a motorized buggy wheel manufacturer vacationing in Hawaii who accidently dropped his rubber tree walking stick into Mount Killihockie, a very small active volcano that immediately had an equally very small eruption, depositing the newly hardened and now rounded rubber walking stick at the man’s feet. He immediately saw how this could be used on his buggy wheels, and wrote in his journal that 1896 had not started out all that well, but with this discovery, it had turned out to be a really “good year.” He went on to start the first and still one of the largest tire companies in the world. You guessed it – he started Firestone Tires. (Got ya!)
We have more than our share of road kill retreads in Florida because the roads get so hot here. Tires have flashbacks to their volcano womb days and just give it up in ecstasy, or in this case, just outside Gainesville. Any number of childhood trauma tire psychology books has been written on this very subject. Contrast this to Alaska where spotting a retread carcass on the side of the road is about as rare as spotting a hang gliding grizzly bear in a bikini, no matter what that YouTube video would have you believe.
You might ask why I would stop and pick up this gigantic retread section and take it home. You might also ask why tires are only available in black, why you have to pay to have your tires “rotated” when that’s pretty much what they do by themselves, or why tire ads refer to white “side” walls when, hello, where else would a wall be other than on a side?
Actually I’m one of many retread tire carcass collectors across the country. The RTCCA (the “A” is for association — you can probably figure out the rest) has members in all states except Alaska, of course. When you join you get this special app for your cell phone. When you spot a particularly interesting retread carcass on the side of the road, you use your cell phone to take a picture of it with one hand, palm up, also in the picture. The app uses GPS navigation to determine the exact spot of the carcass, the date, and leaked FBI fingerprint recognition software to determine who you are. Then, you’re supposed to “tag” the carcass with florescent yellow paint. That way if other RTCCA members stop at the retread carcass, they won’t also get credit for finding it. It’s a very competitive group.
My goal is to have a tagged retread carcass certification from all 49 retread-friendly states. I have 29 so far, although I’ve only physically tagged in nine states. The others I traded for. The way that works is this: Say you’re a collector in Wyoming and you don’t have plans to get to Florida anytime soon. You’d trade a Wyoming retread carcass tag for one from Florida. That’s generally a one-for-one deal. But for states that are less retread-carcass-friendly, which means fewer RTCCA members, the price goes up. To get a certified tag from Hawaii I had to trade three Florida, two Tennessee, and one each from Georgia and Alabama. I also threw in a side-of-the-road, Barbie’s-best-friend-Skipper doll with her right leg and left hand missing. Who knew anyone but me collected those?!
Collectors are also encouraged to remove the tagged retread carcasses from the side of the road. The association has plans to build a combination museum and theme park, and these would make great displays. And that’s all well and good, but I have another incentive as well. Think “The next big thing!” That’s right. I’m talking about retread tire carcass beach thongs! No, not the underwear worn by women and pocketbook-toting men, but the sandals you wear on your feet. Trust me — “thongs” were footwear long before the name was stolen by the bottomwear industry. “Flip-flops” was the consolation prize name, kind of like Auto Shack had to change their name to AutoZone because Radio Shack sued them, since customers might get them confused. (“Come on, honey, let’s go over to Auto Shack and get those 30-ohm resistors, 10-watt capacitors, and the variable rheostat we need to finish that remote-control watering dish for the hamsters!”). Well, who’s laughing now. Radio Shack?
We just got back from a vacation in Saint Augustine, where you can drive on the beach. I’m thinking, if you can drive on the beach, on tire treads, why shouldn’t you be able to walk on the beach, using retread tire treads? It’s way more macho/machette than flip-flops, and unlike the flops, these are made of recycled material and are 100-percent American-made. Both Donald Trump and Al Gore would approve! I can’t give you the full details, because the patent is still pending.
And speaking of that, I read somewhere that when asked to name the most prolific American inventor, guess who 73 percent of high-school seniors named? Thomas Edison or maybe, my choice, the Ronco Popeil Pocket Fisherman guy? Nope. They said “Pat Pending.” Seriously?
I don’t know. I’m staying with Ron Ronco. Like they say, “Give a man a fish, and he has fish breath for one day. But you give him a Popeil Pocket Fisherman …” •
