My High School Tire Guy

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During my high school years, I did what I could to make money on old tires and save money on tires I bought for the old cars I owned. This story is about the guy I dealt with for tires.

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My High School Tire Guy

 

When I was in high school, I was driving some old cars and I didn’t have much money so when I needed tires for my car, I always went to a place called Louie’s Tires on Main Street in Borger, Texas. The place was run by a guy named Louie Zaversnick. He always wore green coveralls with a big square patch on the back that said “Louie’s Tires” on it, and he wore one of those caps like the milkman or the bus drivers wore in the 1950’s. Every time I ever saw him, he was covered with black from head to toe. This guy was rumored to be a multimillionaire from money he made from that combination tire store, filling station. Louie was crippled in one leg, but he was able to throw those truck tires around like they were bicycle tires. I never was positive, but I was pretty sure he had one glass eye because when he looked at you he always turned to one side and the other eye never blinked.

 

 

This guy looks a little like Louie, but he’s way too clean. I believe Louie worked harder than this guy.

 

 

 

Back in those days, a new tire cost about $50 apiece because the manufacturing processes weren’t too good and were costly. Louie bought old tires for $1 apiece if they passed his inspection. There was this hill you had to go down to get to Dixon Creek from Phillips, Texas, that had become the disposal site for old tires for all of the town. People brought the tires and would roll them off of the hill to see how high they would bounce and to see how far they would roll out into the field of mesquite trees at the bottom. There were hundreds of old tires scattered over the area. On the weekends when I had some time, I would go to the area below the hill and I would usually pick up about 10 old tires that were recyclable and sell them to Louie making a little spending money.

 

 

On the old tires he bought that still had some rubber left, he would actually cut new treads in the tires using all the useable rubber left. He would sell the recut tread tires for $8 apiece and that price included mounting on your car. I bought a lot of those recut tires and I was always able to get about 5000 miles out of them.

 

 

This is a 1953 Plymouth like my sister JerrylDine and I co-owned in high school, but we had Louies black wall recut tread tires on it instead of those fancy white walls.

 

If the tires he bought had very little rubber left, he sent them to Amarillo and they would recap the tires by adding rubber and cutting new treads on them. They called this process “Recapping”. He sold the recaps for $15 apiece. I bought a couple of sets of his recaps and got 30,000 miles out of them.

 

 

When I was going to college at Frank Phillips Junior College in Borger, I was driving a school bus for the Catholic School (see earlier blog “Bus Driver Bill”), and it turned out Louie had the contract for all the tire work on the school buses, so I dealt with Louie a couple of more years when I had flats or needed new bus tires.

 

 

Hurry up Louie, I’ve got to get to class. 

 

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Over the years the manufacturing processes have improved and a new tire still costs about $50 apiece. So tire guys like Louie disappeared.

 

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Thanks for reading My High School Tire Guy,
Bill