Two Guest posts for the price of one!
You can't live down south without mentioning the love of pick-up trucks
You can't live down south without mentioning the love of pick-up trucks
Truck-ed; A Love Story
By Paul Kidwell
There’s something about boys who become men, who become infatuated with trucks. Perhaps as the human genome is more fully studied and the advancing science is able to pinpoint just how people discern between “likes” and “dislikes” geneticists will attach a Y (for Y chromosome) on the back gate of the pick-up’s bed. Or maybe biblical scholars will uncover new information that details Adam’s “ride” that was a precursor to modern-day trucks with big wooden tires and parked at the edge of the Garden of Eden. I have no idea how, when and where we become smitten with these mechanical beasts, but for me it has been a lifelong love affair that until now went mostly unrequited.
We boys are notorious for our penchant for toys and while I have never fallen victim to that part of the male psyche that likes to accumulate gadgets, I must admit having a soft spot for shiny pick-up trucks. Not expensive, high-performance sports cars, but rather a big, old brute of a truck with which I will feel comfortable getting mud on the tires. I recall reading a survey that said the majority of men feel that what they drive is a reflection of their personality. Not sure if that’s correct. I am predictable in my maleness and fall victim to all the usual suspects; sports, women, county music and beer, but also wear bow ties, love to cook, and listen to opera. Is this the image of a hard-living, truck-driving man that popular culture has given us? Not sure, and yet I drive on undaunted and fully truck-ed.
The need to own and drive a truck is one of those primal male urges that women will never understand. And although I told my wife that this purchase was going to be for the benefit of our entire family (“think of all the room for the four of us and the stuff we can put in the back” – Ha!), she was on to me in a second and knew that this was one of those rare occasions in my life where I put myself first, and also knew that as long as the finances made sense she needed to let me have my way this one time. Smart woman; her.
When I think of trucks, for some reason I think of men from the southern states, driving along desolate Texas highways or back country roads. As an unabashed country & western music devotee I am well acquainted with how trucks have been romanticized in all those tender tear-jerkers sung by mostly male country singers – be they Southern gentleman or good ol’ country boys – that feature a guy and his truck. And although I drive my iron monster through Boston’s concrete canyons and along its mean streets, as opposed to dust-filled dirt paths or winding mountain passages, I am no less smitten with this love affair for trucks as the stereotypical raw-boned, Georgia teen-aged boy who occasionally borrows his Daddy’s truck for a special date.
Despite my homage to the culture of country music and the pantheonic place the pick-up truck has taken within this genre, I’m afraid that I am more Tennessee Williams than Hank Williams; more Tom Wolfe than cowboy poet, but yet I embrace the same sensibility that draws these men to trucks. Maybe it’s their size and ability to accommodate a man my height – 6’ 5.” Or the personal transformation I feel when I climb atop over two tons of inert material and feel the horsepower roaring beneath me. I defy any man to not feeling a rise in testosterone when sitting above traffic in a pick-up (think General Patton addressing the troops straddling a Pershing tank as he gets them ready to roar into North Africa after a fleeing Rommel) as cars flit beneath your view like so many Lilliputians.
I think most men have this love affair with trucks – and I guess it’s why I finally gave into its four-wheel inertia – because it makes us feel; well, manly. Not the kind of knuckle-scraping, Neanderthal, “I can take anyone in this place, drink the most beer, and score the most chicks” manly, but that part of my brain that makes me feel rugged and powerful; while at the same time being pragmatic with a vehicle that enables me to haul ‘stuff” and drive in, out, and over danger. In polite society I rarely get the chance to embrace these heroic feelings. I’m like most guys out there who are tethered to wife, family and balanced checkbooks; and that’s the way it should be. But, driving my truck allows me this temporary getaway in a vehicle that has the heft and muscle to take me anywhere. Of course, where I am going in my truck is mostly to work, the mall, the grocery store, or to pick up my son from swim practice or my wife from work. But, if I wanted to drive off this road for just a moment and see life beyond those trees or imagine the verdant green of that field over the next hill, or carry something really, really important to people in need; well, I wouldn’t have to wish, “if only I had a truck.”
********************************************************************************
1954 Chevy Truck - Berkeley Clayton
My grandfather had a 1954 Chevy truck with a foot starter. I have mentioned this truck in other writings for the G-Man.
I learned how to drive this truck and along with the tractor, these were the first vehicles I can remember operating when I was a kid. The truck had vacuum wipers on it and when it was raining and you had to accelerate the wipers would stop working. That tended to cause problems especially in traffic. It did not have a radio and it had a three on the column shift. The bed in the back was made out of panels of wood laid between metal strips of some kind. The wood in the truck was coated with creosote or something like that. Try getting that past the EPA today. (Creosote was good stuff back then. It would stop wood rot in its tracks. That is why railroad ties were coated with creosote back in the day.)
When you are 9 it takes a while to get coordinated enough to drive a standard transmission vehicle. I finally learned how to do it and Granddaddy would let me drive to the garbage dump when we went. That was so cool. I loved to drive and still do. When Granddaddy drove sometimes he would let us sit on the front fenders. That was always fun unless it was freezing cold. I remember one time my brother and I were going to sit on the fenders when it was about 25 degrees outside. Granddaddy said don’t do it, too cold. Of course we knew better and did it anyway. Needless to say after we had driven the ¼ mile we were both about to freeze to death. We never did that again either. Like I have said before, bought experience is the best.
He would stack that wood in the chicken yard as high or higher that your head and probably 40 feet long. That was what they burned for heat all winter. I carried a lot of it into the house with the help of my brother. Two fireplaces and a wood stove suck the wood like it was going out of style.
Eventually, my grandfather bought a 1965 Chevy truck. It was dark green with a step side. It has a metal bed, electric wipers, and an electric ignition. No more problems in the rain. My grandfather sold the 1954 truck to John Henry Godwin in Capitola and he drove it for years. John Henry sold it to Buddy Russ and Buddy took the bed off of it and made a trailer out of it. That truck bed was still at Buddy Russ’ house the last time I went to Capitola. They don’t make vehicles like that anymore. I wish I could have that truck now. I would try to fix it up. I know those old vehicles are worth a lot of money now if they are in good condition or have been restored. Too bad all of us did not keep all of that stuff that our parents and grandparents collected over the years.
I think back on all the stuff that my grandmother threw out over the years that I wish I had now. That old truck is like that. I would have used it to teach my kids how to drive a standard transmission. Everyone wants automatic transmission. 1954 Chevy truck…. a cool vehicle!!!
********************************************************************************
Thank you Paul and Berkeley. Not wanting to feel left out down here, I would have to show my own truck and the progress being made. ~ Yankee
 |
| Before |
 |
| after, with much work still to do |
