She’s not the kind of truck you would want to drive on your first date. She certainly isn’t much to look at, even now, as a semi-retired lawn ornament. But in her prime — or at least post-prime life on the homestead — she has been dependable … well, mostly.
Driving to work one morning, I got an eerie feeling that something wasn’t right. I don’t like to show up late or call off, but it became obvious that something required my attention. That something was the vehicle I was driving.
Going down a back country road in the predawn hours of the day, I felt something tug on the back of the truck — something I wasn’t familiar with. When I turned around in the seat to look behind me, I could see the tailgate escaping the latches that were supposed to hold it in place.
Quickly, I stopped the car, got out and retrieved the tailgate. Unable to affix it, I called work and told them I would be a few minutes late. Some still harass me to this day as the only person to call in late because they lost their tailgate.
Unfortunately, it just never could rejoin the bed properly and without that piece of metal between the sides of the bed, the truck looked like it was driving off road during an earthquake. The sides were structurally unsound, due to the amount of rust and lack of material to oxidize more. Each time the truck hit a bump a chunk of rust the size of a plate jarred loose and fell to the ground. Eventually, I felt uneasy even driving it on the road, although I did have dreams of taking it through a car wash, just to see what would happen.
I eventually just tried to use the snot out of it. I moved countless loads of rocks into the woods, where I dug a pond. I loaded the bed with so much weight that the tires touched the rotted pieces of steel that were most closely identified as the fenders. The bottom of the bumper scraped the ground as it rode through the pasture and into the woods to unload.
While I wouldn’t mind a nicer truck, this truck kinda grew on me. After surviving the onslaught I doled onto it, it was time for an upgrade. This was decided after I fell through the floor of the bed multiple times trying to load square bales. It needed something more.
Looking around, I found a few pieces of 4×4 that were intended for a fence around the chicken coop, before I struggled to contend with Pythagorean’s theorem and reluctantly gave up. I found some nuts and bolts and a reciprocating saw that made the bed removal tolerable for three of us. Using my tractors’ boom pole and a chain as some good leverage, I managed to cut and rip the remaining rust infestation off the frame of the truck.
In the end, I’m not sure Old Red is street legal. Not because it has race car abilities, but because the passenger mirror just flew off. A couple of wheels aren’t really good at holding air. And one of the rear lights that I wired into a mismeasured light bracket just kind of falls down. It’s as though the turn signal isn’t just blinking at you — it’s winking too.
The bed is now comprised of lumber, like an out-of-square deck, clad in treated decking. She hasn’t started in a little while, but there will always be a place for her in my heart and my yard!
