vol. 5 issue 17
Greetings,
You probably don’t remember this, but in the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, a whole damned lot of Chevy pick-up trucks went hog-wild, zooming around Centennial Olympic Stadium before fireworks and smoke erupted in the night air (the bombing happened on a different day).
The trucks were preceded by armies of cheerleaders and steppers bouncing about the place, approximating what Southern football stadium culture was like. I doubt even the Crimson Tide has ever been that spasmodic, but I haven’t ever been to an actual Alabama game, so…
Anyway, I was puzzled. Was this hyper whupass motif the America we wanted to showcase and celebrate as we welcomed the rest of the world?
That I remember it at all is to do with the fact that my son was only a month old and I was breastfeeding ‘round the clock, and so watched pretty much all of the Olympics and nearly every Yankees Game, which turned out well for me because that was the year for Joe Torre’s farm team to come up and blow open the league.
Which brings me back to my puzzlement over the battalion of Chevys careening around the center of all eyes on Atlanta that night. I was watching from Manhattan, NY. (That I ever lived in New York City at all seems nearly impossible to me now, it’s been so long, and I have gone through so many permutations of my soul since then.)
Despite having spent a considerable amount of my youth and adolescence in legit redneck country, there was a certain mindset I had adopted as a city dweller, and so many chrome pick-up trucks seemed gauche, I guess.
Or maybe, it seemed cliche, as though, if you were going to skewer the American South, then that is precisely the trope you’d send shooting across the pitch. It even made me wonder if the routine was tongue-in-cheek, less elevating the Southern way, more poking fun at its often ham-handed excess.
But now I own a truck.
What’s more, I think I might even have developed a truck fetish.
It started in Montana. There, pick-ups are so common, I began thinking of them as akin to a state emblem, like grizzlies, meadowlarks, and the bitterroot blossom.
Also, nearly all of them has a hound of some kind riding shotgun. I envied the drivers. To be one half of such a super duo, riding around with the windows down, seemed to express an attitude of carefree productivity, with a piquant pinch of ass-kick-but-only-if-necessary, not overly spicy macho menace.
It appealed to my desire to feel strong and confident given that for much of the summer, I didn’t actually feel that way.
When I arrived in Montana, I was generously lent the use of a vintage Toyota Land Cruiser. I had no idea what a collector’s item that has become. If you care, and you don’t already know, go look up what those babies are listing for these days. It’s a lot.
Driving the boxy behemoth from 1985 felt like being on safari. Exotic, but impractical. And anyway, it was a temporary loan. So, next came my first ever pick-up truck purchase, a 2003 F-150 4.6 liter V6 engine, with standard transmission! It was the last year ever to have such a feature. I love driving stick shift, but the truck? It had issues. I barely paid spit for it.
My plan was to get spendy with the initial repairs before my pumpkin would become my coach, but three mechanics in, I was starting to worry one of them would climb up in the bed and take a dump in it, so bitter are some mechanics about Fords, and especially ones with V6s: “Why make a half ton truck if all you’re gonna do is put a goddamned V6 in it?”
To hell with football stadium culture, this is pick-up truckdom, and it’s serious.
While the debate raged over what to do with the stripped U-bolts on my truck, I found myself driving a battered 1996 Dodge Ram.
And that is when I fell in love with trucks. It had a V8. I was sitting up high. The turning radius was great. And unlike the Land Cruiser, it had working A/C.
But that, too, was short lived, and I was left with my sad F-150 that in the end, no mechanic was willing to fix. They all said it was because they were doing me a favor not to let me spend my money on it, and maybe that’s so, but I think they were all haters.
Because I was driving so many trucks with this, that, and the other thing not working quite right, as well as that I was also responsible for a tractor mower that had been left to sit outside through three years of hot Montana summers, and just as many cold Montana winters, I had developed a pretty good friendship with all the employees at the auto parts store that was, thankfully, within walking distance from me. They were all young gear heads, cheerful, and happy to teach me things.
One of the things they explained was how pick-up truck culture operates. It’s like religion. You accept that others believe in a god, but your god is the real one. The better one. The one that will actually get you through the tough times.
Baptists are to Catholics are to Episcopalians as Chevy Silverados are to Dodge Rams are to Toyota Tundras. To some mechanics, my Ford was a child of a lesser god.
On the day I found myself thinking I was just simply moving across town, but instead had my own sort of conversion on the Road to Damascus, where I knew right then I was moving out of Montana altogether, I needed to sell my Ford and fast.
And I did – to a young man I met in the autoparts store, who was ecumenical about these things.
Plus, he was an auto mechanic and said he could easily fix what needed fixing, which by the way, he said, really wasn’t as bad as the other mechanics had made it seem.
He paid for it in cash exactly what I’d spent to bring it home with me, and promptly put his pit-bull, Pycks, in the front seat. She seemed quite happy to be there. Take that, you Ford Philistines, I thought as I snapped a happy Pycks’s picture.
That I was driving pick-up trucks at all when living in Montana was because I was running a type of landscape business and needed to haul dirt, mulch, and plant materials. Now that I am in Kentucky, my work has reverted to being mostly screen-centric, and so I can drive whatever I want.
Until I could decide, I had been renting, you guessed it, a pickup truck. A Dodge Ram with a V8. Also, with U-Haul painted all over it because did you know they are only $20 a day to rent if you’re gonna stay in-town?
But, after nearly 2 months spent watching a daily parade of F-150s, F-250s, Silverados, Rams, GMC Sierras, and one rather snazzy GMC Denali with a 6-seater super-cab (its singularity makes sense given that the guy driving it is kind of like the pope around here anyway) drive past where I live near the entrance to a small golf course, I couldn’t shake the longing for a V8 of my own. And I don’t mean vegetable juice.
My fetish, if I indeed have one, is the way the V8 feels. It’s powerful. Indeed, strong and confident. It feels weird admitting how much I like it.
So, when an opportunity sprung up unexpectedly for me to purchase another F-150, this time a 2005 Lariat with a 5.4 liter Triton V8 engine, an extended bed, 4 seats, a hitch, plus detailing, and all at a good deal because I know a guy who knows a guy, I did not tarry.
My friend and I headed right away up to Lexington, did a test drive down and around a bunch of horse farms, back roads, and traffic. I loved it, bought it, and went with my friend to have a fried chicken dinner, complete with cornbread and shucky beans, while my truck was getting detailed.
Driving home back south on I-75 over the beautiful Kentucky River, sitting high up enough that I could actually see much of the view, I felt confident and relaxed.
Do I need all that power plus hauling capacity? Why would you ask such a thing? It will fit a kayak and a crap ton of mulch and whatever hell else I come up with needing to do on a Saturday, and if I need to haul a horse trailer, I reckon I can pull it if it’s just housing a pony.
Never mind that my friend asked me what I am compensating for.
All I need now is a puppy.
Peace,
Whitney
Great article Whitney ! I will now look at trucks with a whole new appreciation. Thank you 😊 !
Whitney McKnight, you never, never cease to amaze me. xo