Cool August mornings – words that seldom go together – force one’s mind away from the heavy and hurtful issues that are there on the other side of the Off button. The mind just cannot go there, rather to pleasant, joyful subjects. For me this cool August morning, pickup trucks.
Most of my life has been in the neighborhood of one pickup or another. I have owned a few, inherited one (a 1964 Bronco that exceeded all others in sheer joy of driving), borrowed a couple, never one with fewer than 150,000 miles on the odometer, the point at which person and pickup enter into heightened relationship, especially if it has a standard transmission. At this point you know every sound, every need, every sag in the seat, and you can depend on it to do whatever you need.
I learned to drive in an old Ford-150 on the mountain roads in Montana where winter and spring provided tests for transmissions and the driver’s abilities. Double clutching was the ultimate test to break through snowbanks and run-offs, the smoothness of that operation the difference between gold and silver. There were never extra points for putting on chains, but that skill was appreciated by those who stayed warm in the cab and waited. My Driver’s Ed class put me into a car, but never too far from a pickup.
Those early driving skills must have somehow entered themselves into my walk or talk. For a couple years in my 30s I volunteered with the Smithsonian on a dig in Israel. The dig, Tell Jemmah, was out on the Negev Desert.
We lived on a kibbutz where running water and hard work were plentiful. The dig was some four miles away and we had to be on sight by five o’clock and off by one o’clock.
I absolutely loved it, especially since on the first day, Gus, the director, asked me if I could drive a pickup. I admitted my sin, and I became the driver. To the Tell and back, to the bus stops (for those who wanted to get into Jerusalem on Friday nights before nightfall), or into Jerusalem on other days. Not that it lessened my sweat on the Tell, but it sweetened my summers and my memories.
Years later I joined a group, led by a paleontologist from Purdue, searching for dinosaur bones in eastern Montana. Again hot, dusty work. Again, great fun. Again, the director asked if I could drive a pickup and again, I bounced around the thousands of acres with people, water, shovels, bags of dirt, boxes of findings, into Fort Peck. A grand summer.
When I moved to Arkansas I drove a rented pickup, since then borrowed or rented. It’s hard to explain what makes a pickup, especially an old one, so special. Partly it’s the seating, high with large windows that roll down by a handle, a deep dashboard. Partly it’s the purpose and ability – you’re going to do something. Partly it’s because you’ve escaped the semi-civilized society of a regular car. Partly it’s because of a history with pickups. Mostly, I think, a kind of love. And that can never be explained.
I don’t have a pickup now. I don’t drive very much, but I know that I could borrow an old pickup for a spin if I felt the bone aching need. However, I suspect my next experience will be when Saint Peter asks if I could drive a pickup to help folks through the Holy Gates. I’ll hitch myself up on the high seat, check all mirrors, and shift into first gear.
Marie Howard