BACKROADS • APRIL 2022
Page 10
Morton’s BMW Motorcycles presents Dr. Seymour O’Life’s
MYSTERIOUS AMERICA
CATHEDRAL OF JUNK
422 LAREINA DRIVE, AUSTIN, TEXAS • 512-299-7413 While in Austin for last year’s MotoGP races I made time to explore some of the odder things in the city. Austin is an odd town – you would think that with their favorite saying being “Keep Austin Weird!” So, when I am in the region, I try to seek out something a little different and Austin never fails to provide. Let me tell you about the Cathedral of Junk. Junk? Whoa – not that junk, I mean ‘junk’ junk. You see… what one person will discard another person sees potential. Vince Hannemann is such a person. Let’s not let the word “Junk” throw us off either – as we really should dwell on the Cathedral part of this month’s Mysterious America. A cathedral nestled serenely in Hannemann’s back yard. It was back in 1988 that a then 20-something Vince began this living and ever-expanding Cathedral. He has never stopped building and now has well over 60 tons of, well junk. “People ask me all the time, ‘What made you want to do this?’ Like it had some sort of profound meaning. I just did it because I liked it. And when I stop liking it, I’ll take it down.”
The large framework of the building is seriously anchored by both Vince and Mother Nature’s Texas vegetation. Completely surrounding both inside and out are all manners of items odds and ends. I spotted motorcycle parts right away along with lawnmower wheels, car bumpers, kitchen utensils, ladders, cables, bottles, circuit boards, bicycle parts, brick-a-brack, and much more. Illuminated beer signs, clocks, and other electric doo-dads still operate, powered by unseen cables and outlets hidden within the shadowy silvery-green. Walking inside and through the Cathedral’s tiny alcoves and rooms you will discover all sorts of mementos and, I am sure, pieces of your past as well. I loved it all, well I did cringe at the smashed and battered old Fender Frontman 15B Amplifier. The Cathedral is, in fact, assembled mostly from stuff that people bring to Vince, which makes charting its overall growth somewhat problematic. “You can’t tell people what to bring,” Vince notes. But he
