Dave Wood

I’m a big fan of the History Channel and especially the “American Pickers” segment with chronicles of the “Antique Archaeology” store in Le Claire, Iowa. My sister-in-law says it’s a fake, but my physical therapist in River Falls assures me it’s the real thing, as she’s a fan and actually drove all the way to LeClaire to tour the place. Mike Wolfe and associates like the tattooed associate Danielle would be happy about my therapist’s assertion because they are way ahead of doubters and think the “junk” they collect is essential to understanding our history. 

For instance, I was fascinated with my connection to their treasure hunts when they journeyed to La Crosse to lug out the weighty balustrades from the lobby of the once-elegant Stoddard Hotel. I knew that my Grandpa had seen those very balustrades when he had to sit all night on his honeymoon in 1907 because his bride, my grandma, was too shy to let him into their marital bed. If that ain’t archaeological AND ancient, I don’t know what is. But Grandpa and the balustrades and Grandma’s virginity are not what this column is all about.

Mike Wolfe’s focus in Le Claire is on transportation, everything from auto radiator ornaments to a 1935 Auburn convertible which he and Danielle found in a Kansas barn, paid for its restoration and then gave the owner’s widow a ride down Route 66 where the old lady once again “got her kicks.”

One of Wolfe’s passions is old bicycles. I have long fostered a love-hate relationship with the tempting but dreaded two-wheeled contraptions, so I always tremble with anticipation when Mike crawls into a cluttered attic or hay mow and comes down with a gem from the past, recalling the same old grandpa who once told me about his teenaged adventure with pal Charlie Melby when they celebrated receiving their first “wheel,” by pedaling 45 miles on crushed rock all the way to Eau Claire and then back. 

“The fact that the frames were not tubular but fabricated from solid steel did not make the adventure particularly agreeable,” he recalled. 

I’m certain that Mike would jump with joy if he ever ran across such a behemoth in some junk dealer’s scrap heap, as much as he would my father’s sleek and lightweight from the Roaring 20s, when manufacturers got smart with three-speed transmissions and tossed the big balloon tires that, unfortunately, came back with a vengeance after World War II.

Mike likes them, too, especially if they’re “super” Schwinns with huge front spring coils that provide “knee action” and sleek tanks with a horn button, etc., etc.  Poorer kids like most of us had to rely on Monkey Ward hand-me-downs like my stepbrother’s bare-bones Hawthorne with its weirdly shaped handlebar, a gift from his drafted uncle. When bikes loosened up, my father went to Charley Melby’s bank, borrowed $65 and bought me a Monarch at the Coast-to-Coast store with the understanding I mow lawns and pay him in installments.

The Monarch turned out to be a pile of junk, designed to faintly look sort of like a “super Schwinn,” but whose accoutrements never worked properly. The knee action feature had no coil spring; there was a horn button which stopped working after a few beeps. Its flimsy fork bent when I hopped a curb. By the time I had cut 88 lawns at 75 cents per lawn my Monarch that ruled nothing that it surveyed was retired to the shed, and I delivered my newspapers on foot while my stepbrother sped by me on his old Hawthorne, carrier bag full of Minneapolis Tribunes hooked onto those weird handlebars. Whenever Mike Wolfe finds a Hawthorne, he snaps it up. Monarchs? They’re quite rare, but he never stops making an offer. Could it be that Mike’s father also went to the bank and then on to the Coast-to-Coast?

I wonder…..