| Fire up the way back machine cuz here we go for a ride! |
[May. 2nd, 2009|01:37 am] |
Relating on my other post, I have to tell you guys a little story. Whenever I see a '76 Ford F100 truck, it always reminds me of this story and how much it meant to someone special in my life, my Grandaddy.
This all happened when I was around 9 years old when my Grandaddy was still alive. You see, he had never owned a truck. Never. He'd always had cars. Even though him and my Granny had a small farm outside of town where they lived, he'd always had a car. I remember my Mom telling me a story of how when she was a little girl, my Grandaddy had stuffed a pony in the backseat of his car. I don't remember what kind of car it was, but I was amazed at the fact that they had stuffed a real live pony in the backseat. I kid you not!
Anyways, Grandaddy would spend his weekends down at our house shortly before he retired. He loved to fish. Loved it like nobody's business. I remember him, my dad, and my brother all spent their fair share of time on the lake. We lived a lot closer to the lake than he did and he would come down Friday night and leave Sunday evening. The rest of the time he was on the water. When I was younger, we'd load up and head up to my Granny and Grandaddy's house and stay the weekend. Mom, Granny, and my mom's sisters would go shopping while Pops, Grandaddy, me, my brother, and my cousins would hang around the house and play. Pops and Grandaddy would always be in the garage farting around on their project of the week. I'll hafta tell ya the story of Grandaddy's Yellow Lemon some other time.
Anyways, when Grandaddy got close to retirement and we got older, he'd come down to our house and stay the weekend so he wouldn't have to drive so far to go fishing. He had a 14' john boat with a 20hp Mercury outboard motor and a livewell, as well as the rest of the fishing implaments (as you can see, I don't fish so I don't know what that stuff is) on his boat. He'd drag it down to the house behind an '81 Volkswagen Rabbit.
At the house we were living at, Pops and brother built a temporary shop out of trees and cane. We had shittons of cane growing around and it made nice studs. They covered it with bisqueen and used pushpins to tack it all down. Pops would do some paint and bodywork out there, and fix whatever else needed fixing around the house. I remember Pops came across a '76 Ford F100 at an auto auction and bought it. He brought it home and parked it in the little shop. Before this, him and Grandaddy would go out there and fart around on whatever project Pops was working on at the time; whether it was somebody's car Pops was painting, or whatever other project he had going on. Well, when we got the truck, we couldn't let Grandaddy see it because it was going to be a surprise for him. I remember for a few weekends, we would never let him come out to the little shop to see what we were working on. We'd tell him to go get in his damn boat and go fishing and he would.
The truck was red and white two-tone. Red on the top and white on the bottom. Those of you who know your cars you'll know what I'm talking about. When we painted the truck, we painted it with the XLT paint scheme (again, you have to know your cars). We got some stick-on chrome molding and trimmed it out, put a chrome tailgate protector, chrome bumper with a 2" ball so he could hook up his boat, a plug for trailer lights, and we also redid the interior in the truck. New red carpet, a red bench seat with a diamond tuck pattern sewn into it (I remember my uncle's ex-wife sitting at the sewing machine at the upholstery shop in Grenada making it) and the headliner in the truck was made to match. New tires and white wagon wheels and a sliding back glass topped it all off.
The truck had a strong 302 small block V-8 and an automatic transmission so we didn't have to do much under the hood except a really good tune-up. New plugs, points, wires, filters, an oil change, and a few other things.
That next weekend, here comes Grandaddy like clockwork. When he got to the house Friday evening, we had the truck parked in the driveway washing and waxing it. He rolls up in his silver Rabbit and the first thing out of his mouth was, "Who's truck is this?" I remember handing him the keys and saying, "It's yours Grandaddy!" As long as I live, I will never forget the look of joy on that man's face. I also remember him weeping with excitement too, something I'd never seen in my Grandaddy.
No one had ever given him a vehicle before and I remember him wanting a truck for the longest time but he never got one for one reason or another. I think my Granny had something to do with that because she is five feet nothing and couldn't handle a big vehicle like that. It's kind of ironic she would do that because I remember Granny driving a Buick Grand Estate wagon. If you've ever seen one, you know what a tank it is.
We dropped the boat off the Rabbit and hooked it up to the truck and off to the lake he went. He was ever so proud of that truck. He did want us to do a couple more things to it though. Grandaddy worked for Star distributing and they distributed liquor to all the liquor stores. He wanted a topper on the back so he could carry all his booze and it not get wet and/or ripped off. The other thing we had to put on it was running boards so my Granny could climb up in it because it sat too high off the ground for her.
About a month or so later when it started to get really hot, we combed over the junkyards and found a wrecked Ford with factory air conditioning in it. I remember Pops and Grandaddy cutting holes in the metal dash to install the vents and installing the compressor under the hood. That was back in the day when we had to good freon, R12. Not this cheesy R134A stuff that ain't worth a damn. Pops had a charger and a set of guages that were used to charge up an air conditioning system.
Grandaddy adored that truck. It was his pride and joy and he rubbed it in all of my uncle's faces too! Wouldn't let none of them use it for anything. The only ones permitted to drive that truck was our family, him, and my Granny, although she naver drove it. At least not that I remember anyways.
The saddest day in his life, and I'll never forget this. He went somewhere in it and a cop backed into the passenger side door. Aaawww he was sooo heartbroken! We didn't have time to fix it because two days later we were headed to Kansas City to see my aunt and uncle. Grandaddy wanted to rub their noses in it too. He couldn't quite do the job with the passenger side all caved in as much as if it wasn't wrecked.
About a year later I think, Grandaddy went into the hospital with cancer. His truck sat in the driveway at home waiting on him to get back. As I said, no one was allowed to drive it. Uncles would come by and want to borrow it to do this or that. No dice.
When Grandaddy would go into remission, you could find him and his truck on the lake. I remember one time I was in the truck with him and he told me, "When I die, I want you to have this truck." Granted it was a morbid thing to say and I would always tell him that he'd be with us forever. A year or so later, he finally died. That was one of the saddest days in my life because I was in the hospital room when he passed. He'd slipped into a coma for a day or so. When he finally passed, I saw little white sparkles (I guess you could call them) leave from him and move on. I will never forget that as long as I live.
Afterwards here came my (worthless assed) uncles who wanted his truck. I remember telling them that they couldn't have it or use it for anything. They all started bitching about it and I told them that the truck would go home with me and sit and rot in the yard before any of them got their grubby paws on it. I was 14 or so at the time. They thought my word didn't mean much until Mom and Pops told them the same thing. Sure enough, we took the truck home with us and Moms drove it for awhile. She got another car and again, the truck sat still down the hill next to the shop. I had several friends come by and wanted to buy the truck but we'd never sell it.
I do remember about five years later we finally decided to get rid of it because we had too many vehicles in the yard and the uncles kept pestering us about it, wanting it for this or that. I was the one who did most of the bodywork on it and Brother was the one who painted it. We changed the colour from red and white to red and silver and the truck looked 100 times better. We should of done that to begin with. We sold it to one of my friends and he drove it for a while and he sold it to someone elase and I haven't seen it since.
Every time I see a '76 Ford F100, it always reminds me of my Grandaddy and how much I loved that man. He'll live on forever in my mind and memories and now in my journal. Whereever you are Grandaddy, I miss you and I still love you. |
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