A Foray into Freedom

I want to continue a theme that I had started a few week back, when is a truck more than just a metal storage bin on wheels?

Answer, always.

This past week marked a very important holiday for all of America and then a very important holiday here in Michigan.

November 11^th was my uncle’s birthday, but more importantly for myself as well as everyone else, November 11^th was Veteran’s Day, where we take some time as a nation to recognize those who have served in our country’s armed forces having made the highest commitment to ensuring our freedom.

I personally want to recognize my father, who served as a field medic in the Army during the Vietnam War, and my Grandfather who served as a firefighter in the Air Force during the Korean War.

Just a few short days later, November 15^th was opening day for Rifle Hunting of Deer in Michigan, where countless Michiganders, after tireless preparation readying their rifles, their deer blinds, their breakfasts and coffee  and snuck off in their trucks deep into the woods to patiently await their chance to bag a deer.

Now I am not much of a hunter myself, but I still feel that it is important, and my duty as a Michigander to make the trip up north for opening day. Besides, anytime there is a way for me to hop in a truck and sit in the silence of nature, potentially for hours, sign me up.

The family and I drive up to my wife’s grandparent’s house near Manistee the night before and enjoyed a community dinner, the next morning my wife’s grandpa Ken starts the truck up at 7am and all the boys hop in and head for their blinds.

Two shots ring out at 9:04am from the blind on the east side of the property, followed by one shot from the west blind at 9:09am. In a rare stroke of success both groups had managed to catch a deer in their crosshairs, not only on opening day which is exciting, but within two hours of arriving at their blinds. After a quick field dressing, Robbie and Wes threw their kills in the bed of the truck and tried to think of what to do with the rest of their day!?

As much fun as it is to relive that, I want to clarify something before concluding, I know I spent a bit more of my focus on Deer hunting than I have on either trucks or veteran’s day, but please do not assume that I find those two things any less important for that is simply not the case.

I really just wanted to build a better picture to show how these three things while seemingly independent really represent the same thing.

Freedom

When shaking the rust off, don't shake too hard

So as I had mentioned in my last blog post, I have another story to tell about that 1988 Chevy I bought from my grandfather when I was 16. For those of you who may not have read my last post, when I was 16 I bought a 1988 Chevy S-10 from my grandpa thinking that it held all of life’s answers or something.

Source | S10forum.com

 It was a great vehicle for a first car. Standard 5 speed transmission coupled with Chevy small block I-4 engine and a simple bench seat. 

To sum that up, it was great from my perspective because it was clean, good on gas, and made me feel like a “man” because I drove a manual. It made my parents happy because it was low cost to insure, only sat 3 (really only 2 as the stick shift would hit anyone brave enough to sit in the middle), and didn’t go very fast so I was seemingly less likely to get into trouble with it.

Then disaster struck, a relative’s car died and after some pretty intense negotiations, I agreed to help them out by sharing my mom’s car and “loaning” them my truck until they could get another car. I was thinking maybe a week, month tops.

Fast forward a few years, I did finally get my truck back. Only trouble was the condition of the truck when I got it back. It had seen over 100,000 miles while on “loan”. Even bigger problem was that rust had eaten away so much of the body that the poor white Chevy looked like smoked Swiss cheese. Driving like a Flintstone was almost an option as the floor was rusting through too.

Source | zombdrive.com

I had purchased a brand new Ford Ranger well before getting my Chevy back, so to get it back in that shape was especially disheartening. There was nothing I could do with it, the clutch was shot, the body was gone, the transmission was rough, and worst of all I couldn’t afford to insure it let alone repair it.

After accumulating a couple eye sore citations from the city I had to sell the truck for the metal value. Sad state of affairs, as I had paid my grandpa $3k which was a discount and in the end what was left of the truck was $500 worth of steel minus the $200 I had to pay to the city for the eye sore.

I currently have dreams of buying a brand new F-150, so I keep asking myself, what if that truck had been made of military grade aluminum like the new F-150?

And I’m left thinking, well then I probably would have never gotten it back at all…

Trucks, so much more than metal on wheels

I think I can effectively speak for all men when I say; I have aspirations to be like Jay Leno.

No I don’t want to be a media icon, no I don’t want to host a late night TV show, but man would I like to have a garage with more cars in it than I know what to do with.

For those of you that do not follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I made a post the other day detailing a particular struggle I am facing. Every day on my way to work I am reminded that I don’t have $20k just sitting around that I can throw at something I don’t really need! On my way to work I drive past a used car lot that sell mostly classic cars and trucks, and recently they parked a Green and White 1957 Ford F-100 front and center on the lot, and it is killing me.

I have found that the passion for classic cars and trucks is often a manifestation of fond childhood memories, and this story is no different. My grandpa is really the one who led me to my passion not only for Trucks, and by extension, Ford products in general. I would also like to note my grandfather is still very much alive, so please don’t think I am leading you on some Hallmark channel sob story, though he does love the Hallmark channel.

 Growing up, I used to spend summers on my grandparent’s farm in northern Minnesota. He would drive me around countryside in his old International pick-up truck, and we would drive around the countryside for no real reason at all, just to spend time and enjoy the scenery.

When I was 16 I thought that I could tap into that nostalgia by buying a 1988 Chevy S-10 from my grandpa, but that nostalgic euphoria was really short lived for reasons that I will get into in another blog post, but either way it didn’t quite pan out because I was missing the point. It wasn’t just a truck that forged those memories; it was spending time with my grandpa over common interests, listening to nature and riding in pick-up trucks. Here is a link to an article I read about a man that can truly relate.

So, let’s get back to why seeing this truck every day is killing me softly. Like I said, it’s really not about the truck itself, though it is an amazing truck, it’s about life getting in the way of living. As I am sure everyone experiences, as we grow up life gets complicated. We have jobs, kids, responsibilities; and just like I am reminded daily, we long for the simplicity and solace of sitting in the bed of an old pick-up truck with a loved one, staring out at a corn field, not a care in the world.