[coupe1942]

We were at a car show and Sorghum Festival in Wewoka, Ok. a week or two back and stopped into an antique mercantile store. The place was full of artist goods and loaded with some art made out of horse shoes. It also had tons of equipment and supplies for farriers. The lady owner told me that her son was the artist and that he also was a dedicated black smith. We chatted about this very topic and i had also spoken to some farriers located in the Abilene, Tx. area in the past. Her comments about such were pretty much on target with their's.

My son had at one time worked as a rodeo clown and had also learned a bit about that trade. He found out pretty quickly that the life of a Rodeo Clown is not necessarily as full of fun as one may think. The $100 bucks per night may pay for beer, cigarettes and sandwiches, but it hardly mates up to paying for bandaids and hospital bills when you end the performance after each event. The lady told me that being a blacksmith was indeed a high demand job as far as customers in need, but that schools or training facilities were simply not around in that area. It is an agriculture area for sure though. She didn't have much hope of most youth actually following through and making it a career choice though and neither had the fellows back in Abilene.

We did see her son out at the festival that day and he had set up; a display area there to show off how blacksmithing had been done at the start of the previous century. It was heavy duty work and a lot of it. He didn't shoe any horses while we were there, but he did a lot of art work in making swords, axes and horse shoe art things.

Millennials are not known for wanting positions of hard work and that is a skill that can certainly be taxing and full of bending over and doing a lot of hard work. The financial reward is often not a good as one may think when it comes to paying bills and making a living from it, as well. Me, I am not sure how many kids would actually end up taking his place as a farrier or that of others in the trade. I sort of doubt it reflects much as to the auto hobby though. One never knows though and most of us probably won't be about long enough to see how it all plays out as this century ends and another begins. I do know we stood there for quite a while and watch in amazement as to how he worked and how professional his work was, but I just don't recall any kids standing about watching with their eyes wide open to imagination and envy.

I'd venture to bet that most cars these days will never get to age until they are the age of our Model A's. The electronics will not be as easy to replace or work on as the parts to our vintage cars generally are. They won't just rust away in barns or in salvage yards, but decompose at an alarmingly fast rate, instead. Does that necessarily mean our own hobby as to Model A's or even muscle cars and pickups (which seem even more popular in this part of the country than the Model A's) will slack off or continue to grow in interest of the youth? I have no real clue, myself.