While not necessarily what you would expect at someone’s choice for their significant event, mine is, if not more than, just as significant as anyone else’s. It’s not a special vacation, something that I’ve participated in, or anything else that probably wouldn’t bore and/or confuse you as much as this, but the fact that I purchased my truck. Yes, the kind of truck that you drive around in with the tires and engine and all that stuff. It’s my “most prized possession”, obsession, and well-abused workhorse, and we’ve been through a lot together in our last almost two years.
It all started with me getting to the age of driving and needing my first automobile, as you might expect. My whole life I have had an obsession with big, specifically old but sometimes new, 4x4, real American trucks (I have my own definition for what a real truck is but that’s kind of irrelevant here). So, it’s obvious that I spent a long, tedious time without my own vehicle so I could seek out just that: my 1984 Chevrolet K10 longbox. In other words, a badass Chevy pickup truck from ’84.
It wasn’t easy to find what I was looking for considering how specific my requirements were and it was definitely stressful working the inevitable Craigslist multiple times a day. But it was fun, too, and absolutely worth it. When I did come across this truck finally, the stress kicked into overdrive. I called the seller and he told me that he had a guy coming to look at it from Connecticut and if he doesn’t want it, I’d be the next in line. Not to my surprise, this guy was “a very interested, likely buyer”. I called the owner back a few times, begging him to just let me buy it right out from under his other buyer, but he denied whatever stupid offers I proposed. Luckily, the “very interested, likely buyer” never showed up; my cue to haul ass to the seller’s house.
We briefly checked the truck out together but I wasn’t interested so much in its condition as I was in its potential once it received the “TLC” it needed. Within minutes, we had a deal. This guy had his own tow-truck, so he hauled it to my house later in the day and I paid him for the price of the truck and an additional forty bucks for the diesel his tow-truck burned to get there. It wasn’t until days later that I noticed the ad said the price for the truck was negotiable and I paid the full amount he wanted, in addition to paying for the dude’s little commute to my house. Oh well… worth it!
After sinking the first heap of money into the truck to get it running somewhat reliably, I began to have my fun, illegally, in trails and mud. It wasn’t long from the time I acquired the truck to the time that I did what was one of the most devastating things for me. I went off-roading one night, maybe two months later, and got stuck in a mud hole. None of the other trucks that were there could pull me out, ropes and winch cables snapping left and right. I was hopelessly stuck in very deep and thick mud, deep into the middle of the woods inside a very narrow and difficult trail.
Twenty-four hours later, after a lot of money spent on jacks and plywood, and after accidently running over my dad’s cell phone with his truck, then denting his truck driving it through the tight trail in order to get it to mine, and after failing all day at different techniques and attempts to pull it out, in the insect-infested mud that eventually got very cold to work in, we somehow got it out. This was our last attempt before my dad was ready to scratch the VIN off the thing and burn it right there.
While it was awesome that I finally got my baby back to safety, the real problem was unveiled. In addition to gallons of mud inside my cab, dents all over my truck from driving it back out of the trail late at night with the mud all over the windows and mirrors, obstructing my view of trees, I apparently blew my fawkin’ engine on my attempts to get the truck freed under its own power. And I didn’t even mention the broken washing machine from our muddy clothes even though we hosed them off before hand. Go figure. But long story short, the blown engine resulted in the most depressing six months of m life with my truck sitting at my dad’s warehouse where he said the company’s mechanic would be able to drop a new engine into it for significantly less than a real mechanic. Little did we know it was going to take this idiot six months to do. And when he did finally get it done, and my dad went to pick it up and drive it home without me knowing, as a surprise, the replacement junkyard engine exploded on the way, almost causing an accident from all the smoke. Back to the warehouse to do it all again!
Since getting it back for real, about three months later, the truck and I have been through a lot together. There’s been more off-roading, more damage, more repairs, a lot more money sunk into it, and a lot of good times and driving it all over. It’s even the reason I finally had the guts to start hanging out with the girl who had wanted me for the last three years. I was too afraid to talk to her until I had my own ride. (And for the record, I wanted her that whole time, too; it was the lack of truck holding me back.) We spent a lot of the summer taking the truck onto the 4x4 beach (Smith Point) and we have had a lot of amazing memories, both on and off the beach, thanks to the truck. Her significant event essay that she had to write last semester was actually about one of the more special times we had at the beach, truck fully equipped. Now engaged-to-be-engaged, we intend to make this upcoming summer even better.
If you haven’t been able to detect it yet, I love driving. I have so many miles under my belt that are there for no reason but leisure. This, of course, leads to many more things I could thank the truck for giving me and tons more experiences/memories I could tell you about. And that’s not even including the fact that the truck is a hobby, too. Working on it mechanically, learning from doing so, and washing and customizing it, are all things I love to do when I’m not driving around in it, on or off the road.
Recently, I thought I did more serous damage to the “new” engine, which led to a very scary heartbreaking feeling, but it turned out to not be so bad; a fairly simple fix that I did myself. Aside from that, I’ve sunk plenty more money into it on repairs and whatnot and it does still have plenty more things that require that tender loving care. It got hit by a plow truck a few snow storms ago, just sitting outside my house, which needs to be dealt with soon. But despite me having no money because of it, and people putting me down for keeping up with it this long, it’s never going anywhere. One day I hope to do a frame-off restoration to it and continue to daily-drive it for as long as possible. It has been and will remain an extremely significant part of me, through thick and through thin.
