Last Updated on 5/30/2012

Published on 2/2/2012

When I think back, one of my earliest memories is of a pick up truck. We were home on leave and were staying at Granddaddy’s, and he had just come home from work. I don’t remember what kind it was, I just remember it had a round top like those old trucks had. He’d pulled up and I ran outside to carry his lunch box in, it’s funny how little kids think like that, a grown man needing help carrying a lunch box. But I remember climbing up in it to get it, and all these years later the smells of that truck are still with me. It had a kind of mixture of pipe tobacco, old leather seats, and maybe a little oil and gas threw in. No frills, just a steering wheel and three on the column, I don’t even think it had floor mats, a man’s truck back then didn’t have such extras, just a brush to sweep it out, and a rag to wipe the windows. How times have changed.

It wasn’t but a year or two later he went and bought another one, an International Scout, and I got to go with him to get it. The reason I know it was a Scout is because it’s parked in my backyard, though it’s been years since it’s run. But me and him, Grandmamma, and my Mama, we all piled in it to drive it home that day, that’s been close to fifty years ago, but in my mind’s eye it could have been yesterday.

He must have bought it because he was getting ready to retire, and figured that would be the last chance he would have to buy a new one. Most folks these days wouldn’t even give a truck like that a second glance, two wheel drive, the stiffest three on the floor you have ever seen, sliding windows, no radio, a bench seat like a school bus, and a bed just big enough for a couple trash bags, and not much else. A little four cylinder he once told me wouldn’t pull a chicken off its roost, but he loved that old truck.

When he retired he told Grandmamma he was going to fish every day, you know how it is when you’re thinking about one day every day will be yours. He had a little fourteen foot Carolina wooden boat with a 6.5 motor on the back, just enough for him. To this day, people still tell me of seeing him headed to the river, or on the way home. But that was his truck, a term that with our trading cars every few years, a lot of us might not understand.

He knew in the morning when he was getting ready to back up to the boat, it would fire up, or when Sunday rolled around, he wouldn’t be late for church, because some sensor didn’t feel like talking with the computer. If he needed a saw horse, the tailgate would work, or if he just needed to sit down a minute under the tree, he didn’t worry if his pocket knife in his pocket would scratch the paint.

But finally, many years later he got it in his head he might need another truck, so he parked it. Mel and I hadn’t been married too long and like most married couples back then, we only had one way of going. Mom called me one day and told me why don’t you see if Granddaddy will sell you the Black Truck. So I rode over and asked him about it, he was interested, but he had only one condition, “I’ll sell it to you, as long as you promise never to sell it.” So I made him that promise, and I rode home in my dream, I was driving the Black Truck, and it was mine.

You should have heard the laughs the first day I drove up to the mill, “Where in the world did you find that at?” But it was mine, and I didn’t care. For the next several years the Black Truck carried me back and forth to Sampit Lumber, but I think time and age were finally getting to him. Before long I had to have the engine rebuilt, the clutch kept acting up, and I even had to replace the ignition switch. Some nights he just refused to crank, no reason, he just would say NO.

It was about this same time Granddaddy was going down too. It was like both of them were going down the same road together. Then one night about three in the morning, all these years later I finally understand it, they took their last ride together. I was headed home, and as I was passing a newly plowed field, the light from the full moon bouncing off the windscreen, I saw him, there was my Granddaddy sitting in the truck with me, with his Fedora hat on, his legs crossed like he always did when I was driving, smoking his pipe … the only words I could get out were, “We’ll be home in a minute Granddaddy”. You might not believe it, that’s alright, I know what I saw.

The next day when I called Momma, she told me Granddaddy had had a bad night, and they had almost lost him, that’s alright I knew where he had been. But a couple days later he left us.

And a couple months later, I bought me another truck, it seemed as if the heart and soul was gone out of the Black Truck, and it was time for it to have its rest too.

You can reach Robbin by e-mail at robbinbruce@yahoo.com.