The old grey pickup
wasn't always old and grey. It used to be new and silver with maroon racing
stripes. The chrome tire rims reflected the blue skies. The bumpers gleamed in the sun. The
first time my daddy introduced me to the old pick up was in March a couple of
springs before my oldest son was born.
My husband had just
passed his pilot's license. In his usual unassuming swagger he stepped into our
yellow-shag, extra-wide trailer and promised to get me home at Spring break. He
rented a 172 from the Aggie airport in College Station. He
used a navigational approach called "IFR" which means "I follow
roads." And that's what we did. We pointed the nose of the aircraft
towards the sunset and followed Interstate 10 towards El Paso. The winds in west Texas during the spring often reach hurricane force. Flying at 10,000 feet, we watched the 18-wheelers
pass us up on the Interstate below. It didn't take long to realize we would run
out of fuel before we would reach home. So my pilot husband made the decision.
After cussing out the fool who built a tower at the end of the runway, he
sashayed that lawn-mower with wings onto the runway and landed. We spent the
night at the Devil's Inn in Ozona and the next day rode the Greyhound the remaining
eight hours into the Sun-City. My hometown.
My parents picked us
up in the part of downtown El Paso where you don't walk alone at night. The garishly lit bus
station was full of travelers surrounded with their belongings in
tied up boxes and shopping bags. I breathed in the sight and felt at home. My
parents lead us to the new silver pickup parked at the curb. Their eyes
sparkling. My daddy proudly handed me the keys and offered to let me drive his newest prized possession. The four of us crowded into the cab already brimming over with joy
and pride. I drove us home. The neighborhood I grew up in was the kind where
you parked in your single-car driveway with a club locking the steering wheel
to the brake pedal, a chain and padlock on the hood and another one on the
spare under the pickup bed. With a huge black dog in the back yard, all was
safe.
The pickup always
played a supporting role in my family memories. Pretty soon my three
kids were on the scene and we usually ran out of money before the end of the
month. We had found our corner under the Sun right outside of Houston near the
Brazos River. A comfortable place to raise children.
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| Ito's pickup became part of the family just like our beagles did. |
The Lord had blessed
my parents with another vehicle so they blessed us with their silver pickup with the maroon racing stripes. My daddy
had put a matching camper shell on the pickup. A wonderful brother from Daddy's
church had customized the back with wooden platform and boxes expertly
upholstered with matching maroon carpet. Color coordinated camper shell on your
pickup was high style in the world I grew up in. Ito, a term of endearment for
my dad, gave me his best. The pickup left the desert
and moved to the coastal region of our Lone Star State. My kids were thrilled. The kids played in the back of that pickup by day
and begged to sleep there at night. Ito's pickup became part of the
family just like our beagles did.
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| My kids grew up in that pickup. |
One afternoon, the
kind when the red oaks begin to turn and sweatshirts emerge from the
bottom drawer, my younger son took a tumble on his bike around the corner from the house. We piled into
the truck to make the rescue. The dog was barking her head off behind the
hurricane fence. We assured her we would return and bring brother home. She was
not comforted. I turned the key and started the engine. Kitty fur flew
everywhere, that is when I understood dog language. She had warned us that our
kitty was keeping warm under the hood. I grabbed my daughter and looked square
into my older son's eyes. "Son, there comes a time in every boy's life
when he must step up and be the man. Now is that time. You must open that hood
and rescue kitty. Your sister and I will be waiting indoors." Younger son
managed to walk his mangled bike home while older son reached under the hood
and pulled out kitty. Her limbs were intact. She was missing the tip of her
left ear and the fur off her left
shoulder.
Ito's silver pickup
with the maroon racing strips was now beginning to turn grey. But that didn't
stop it from hauling wood, sand and baseball teams. Back and forth to the
grocery store, church and the ball fields. Trips to the beach, trips to Grandma's, trips
to museums. My kids grew up in that
pickup.
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| Trips to the beach. |
Pretty soon it was
time to move. My husband had gone on ahead. I piled up what was left in the
house into the pickup. This included the three kids, the kitty cat with one
short ear, the dog and her puppies. We made sure that we could shut the back of
the camper, filled up both gas tanks and pointed the pickup north. The kids
negotiated turns to ride in the back with the puppies. We stopped
at every DQ to water the dogs and eat ice cream, all the way to the prairies
of north Texas. I found boldness behind the wheel. Ito's presence lived in that pickup
like a genie in a bottle. He always felt close. And when my kids were finally
old enough to drive, for some crazy reason I always felt they were safer in
that old pickup.
While you're in the
middle of raising a family, it feels like you're at a standstill but in retrospect, time
flies. The paint began to rub away and added a rusty hue to the color palette.
The camper shell let the rain in. The maroon carpet had to be pulled up and tossed.
The radiator was replaced, my husband rebuilt the engine and got a new
transmission. The seat was reupholstered, the cab
ceiling replaced. All before cell phones. On our long distance calls home, I
would tell my parents how the dogs and the kids were doing and all about the run they scored
in the last ball game. Daddy would ask about the truck and how it was behaving.
One icy December night my
husband was working in San Antonio. He called. There was a worried edge to his
voice. Get the truck into the garage, he told me. The temps were dropping and
would freeze the water in the truck and crack the block. We were to move the cherry picker and other tools out
of the way to make room in the garage. Even if all we could do
was get the hood under the roof that would be good, he assured me. My son
called his buddies. One buddy answered the call. This young man was taller than
most. He showed up in flip flops and a hoodie. Ice was falling out of our Texas
skies. The
tall buddy pushed the truck with the half rebuilt engine, up the slight incline covered with a thin layer of
the ice and into the garage, risking life and limb for that pickup. I will always be grateful to that young man.
Heroes come in many shapes and sizes. And sometimes wear flip flops.
One November afternoon, my kids murmured into my husband's ear, "Dad, don’t get rid of
the pickup." Ito had stopped driving long ago and we had all cried at his graveside. Pretty soon the replaced upholstery began to tear, the
replaced ceiling began to sag, and the windows stopped working. The engine caught
fire and it was no longer fun to get stuck on the side of the road. The truck
earned its place on our driveway after the high-falootin' neighbors called the
police about this nonworking pickup parked at the curb. Every time my husband
had a little extra cash he would take the pickup into his favorite mechanic and
have something worked on. Once a month, my husband would hook the charger up to
the battery and start up the engine just for good measure. He would take the
pickup out for a spin around the block and park that old grey mare, as my kids
affectionately called her, back in the driveway. I would hear the truck before
I can see it coming around the corner. Every time we discussed finances, I
brought up selling the pickup to cut expenses. I always lost.
I never fully
understood the love between a man and his pickup until today. My son is
driving home on Christmas Day. He has to be at work in the morning. I stand at
my living room window watching my husband and my son. One of them is wearing a
Duck Commander jacket and cap, the other an army green Carhartt duck jacket and
Rangers cap with a frayed bill. Together they empty out the trash that has
accumulated in the old grey mare. Empty kitty litter bags, an empty apple sauce
box used to carry home something else from Sam's. Bricks, pavers, stray
pieces of metal, and broken tree limbs. My husband lifts the hood and dry
leaves scatter in all directions. The living room windows rattle when the
engine roars. Both men look under the hood and nod in approval. "If she
doesn't start," I hear my husband advise our son. "Just pour some gas into
the carburetor." My husband places the heavy duty jack in the back of the
pickup along with some jumper cables. Just in case. It'll be dark before he gets to his home on the coast. My son comes in the house
and grins at me. "It's going to be fun to see if that old pick up makes it
across Texas one more time." I fill his pockets with snacks for the road.
I wave goodbye to my son and
hear Dad's old pickup turn away at the corner. The silver
is now rust. The racing stripes are faded. If you hit a pothole the engine will
stall. If you let it sit too long you'll have to coax it back to life. You'll have
to drive with the windows down in the summer because the AC doesn't work. You
have to drive with your jacket on in the winter because the heater won't come on. If you roll the windows down you won't be able to roll them up in a
rainstorm. It's hard to see out because the windshield is pitted from
sandstorms.
It's the challenge
of keeping it running. It's the rush of hearing the roar of the engine. It's
the familiar creaking of the old shocks. It's the rumble of an over-fast idle.
It's the memory of sitting under the hood as a little boy with your grandfather.
And bleeding the brakes with your
father. It's the vision of taking the truck to the beach to go fishing. It's
the plan of what to restore first. It's the hope of working on it with your son
yet unborn. It's the love between a man and his pickup.
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| Daddy and his pickup. Snowstorm in El Paso. |
