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March 17, 2005
Today is truck day
By this evening we'll be a two-vehicle-family again, thank god. One vehicle sucks. This will be the first time Tom's ever been in a pickup truck family! That was an interesting thing to think about, given that I grew up in a farm family. In fact, as I grew up in the 50s and 60s, it was in a multi-farm family: mine was an extended family that had its own corporation, and the corporation owned a military prep school (no kidding); a boys' summer camp; and several farms. I grew up amongst Presbyterian wealth, which means there was loads of property and status but never any spending money; kids' clothing was mostly hand-me-downs; and all the kids were expected to be raising, showing, and selling their own steers starting at age ten. I have a picture of me showing my first steer at the West Virginia State Fair: my head barely reached the top of the steer's back. I can remember chopping ice in the watering trough when I was so small that raising the axe was an accomplishment. As soon as I was physically big enough, I was taught the nuances of driving the farm trucks, which were WWII Army surplus deuce-and-a-halfs: monsters to get from one gear to another. The first time I ever swore was while I was shoveling cowshit from my steer's stall. So yes, I've been in a pickup truck family before. The kind of pickup that when you rode in the bed, you had to sit on the wheel cover to keep the manure off your jeans.
5 p.m. update: There are trucks, and then there are t-r-u-c-k-s. This one is V6—way more power than I've ever experienced in a pickup. Pulled out of the dealer parking lot in a perfectly normal manner (for a car) and promptly fishtailed. That was waaay too much like the accident of two months ago, when my car spun on ice. I crept home. It's a wonderful vehicle that I'll be getting acquainted with very, very cautiously.
Posted by senioritis at March 17, 2005 10:02 AM