Here's how to find the toughest man in Pinellas County: Drive north through downtown Tarpon Springs, take a left at the antique Bible museum on Rainville Road, then hang a right at the boat storage lot. When Rainville dead-ends, look for the white Hobbs Metals and Recycling sign, and follow the arrow through the gate into the five-acre junkyard. After that you're on your own — there's no one way to navigate the maze of rust behind the gate, and there's no telling where exactly Clarence Hobbs will be. But he'll be in there somewhere, I promise.
It's no accident that his yard is so far out of the way; that's exactly where Hobbs wants to be. The Junkman (the title on his business card) once had a used car lot on Alternate 19. When he'd get a dead car, Hobbs would strip it for parts, burn the skeleton, and take the scrap and ashes to a recycling depot in Tampa.
"The county comes by one day, and I had about four of 'em burning," he remembers. "The guy says, 'Hobbs — you can't do this here.'" But the official gave him a tip. There was a place out on Rainville Road where he could burn as many cars as his pyro-heart desired. Hobbs bought the lot soon after. That was 35 years ago.
The recycling business is still Hobbs' cash crop — aluminum, steel and copper head to Tampa several times a month — but looking at his yard, it's easy to tell where his loyalties lie. He runs the place like a mullet — business in the front, party in the back.
The recycling operation only takes up a small portion of the lot, just inside the gates. It's clean, or as clean as a junkyard can be. But once you get beyond that, into the world of rusted fences and broken-down cars, surfboards and bathtubs, you see why Hobbs is really in this business.
"I can't throw nothing away," he says.
Hobbs grew up on a small farm outside of Holden, W.Va., during the Depression. He spent his days walking the hillsides and through the town dump, looking for anything of value. He started with Superman comics, but soon he was picking up copper and aluminum too.
"When you grow up with nothing," he says, "you can find a use for anything."
But it wasn't just the Depression that made Hobbs tough. The guy's been in a prizefight with life since the day he was born. Life gave him a shiner before he was even out of the womb.
Hobbs popped out on May 8, 1930, with his left eye shut, and he's still got a permanent wink 75 years later. He's had prostate cancer and spinal meningitis. He's had an abdominal aneurysm, heart bypass surgery, and skin cancer so rough that doctors eventually had to remove the bottom half of his jaw.
And still, at age 75, Hobbs works in the yard six days a week. He attributes his longevity to keeping a positive attitude. "If you feel good about something, you can still do it," he says. Hobbs cruises in a golf cart now, but it's a golf cart with a storage bed, and he still loads and unloads scrap onto the back of it.
The years, the wear and tear, are visible all over his body. The graft on his shoulder where they got the skin to cover what's left of his chin. The leathery flaps that droop off his scrawny neck. And his hands. His hands could be in a museum. Callused on the inside, hardened outside like the skin on hot soup, they're almost cartoonishly out of proportion with the rest of his frail body. His hands are healthy, muscular tools. And Hobbs is still using them.
The toughest man in Pinellas County has had some bouts with the government, too. The days when cops were giving out good car-burning spots are long gone, and Hobbs' junkyard has been watched closely by the Environmental Protection Agency, especially after a 2001 tire fire that could be seen as far away as Clearwater Beach.
Hobbs and his son Carl, who also works on the yard, were arrested for illegal littering shortly thereafter. The duo received pre-trial intervention, which kept them out of jail, but were forced to complete a rigorous cleanup and monthly inspections. The county still keeps an eye on them, Carl says, but the yard got a clean bill of health last year and both men say those problems are in the past.
Hobbs likes sparring with customers, too. The prices on aluminum and copper are dictated by the market, but the value of the stuff in the back is always up for debate. "When they drop it off it's junk," Carl says. "But when they come to buy it? Then it's treasure."
Hobbs has two kinds of customers for the junk: People looking for spare parts, and designers and artists looking for magic. College kids make up a sizeable part of the business, and Hobbs knows that the value of an old Eckerd Pharmacy sign depends on who's buying. If you can pay, you're going to.
"He could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman in white gloves," says Carl, 34, as good at turning a phrase as he is at cutting up scrap.
But Hobbs' haggling days may be coming to an end; he's considering cutting a deal on the back portion of the yard. He bought the land, which is close to the Anclote River, for $10,000 in 1971, and thinks he could get almost $2 million for it today. Carl and his sister Brandi will keep the recycling business going in the front, but if Hobbs gets the offer he's looking for, the party in the back might be over.
Would that be the final round?
"Ahhh, I figure I'll live to about 140," Hobbs says with a smile, tilting back the brim of his ever-present straw cowboy hat. "I see a bunch of people in the old folks' home. They're not able to do nothing – and I don't want to be that way."
Clarence Hobbs is not about to give up the fight.
Hobbs Metals & Recycling is open 8 a.m-6 p.m. Monday-Friday, and 8 a.m.-noon Saturday. 1599 Rainville Road, Tarpon Springs, 727-934-1591.
Got an idea for an Urban Explorer column? E-mail max.linsky@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Oct 26 – Nov 1, 2005.