By Paul Schwennesen
A 1981 Dodge Ram Van (faded brown with those funky round portholes in the back) leaves the town of Winkelman at 45 miles an hour pulling 2,500 pounds in an unregistered trailer. A 2012 Nissan Leaf (silver, with a “Be Kind” bumper sticker) departs Tucson at 72 miles an hour carrying an iPad 3 and a Frappuccino. Which is greener?
Beats me. All I know is I see them both on the road to the ranch, and each carries an intriguing back-story.
The van is hauling twenty-five hundred pounds of rusty, twisted scrap metal that’s been scrounged from a desert wash somewhere. Looks like maybe a Studebaker panel and some old irrigation pipe. I know where he’s headed: to the scrap yard. Rumor has it that scrap recyclers are now paying $160 a ton for anything you can drag in. Old freezers, wrecked cars, barbed wire, you name it, they’ll buy it.
