My Old Chev Truck
Goin’ down the road, in my old Chev truck
Gettin’ where I’m goin’ maybe takes a little luck.
The fuel tank leaks, there’s a hole in the floor
And I’ll have to admit that there’s quite a bit more,
Yes, I’ll have to admit that there’s quite a bit more!
The tail pipe’s gone and the windshield’s cracked.
The hood and cab are red and the fenders are all black.
There’s a small crop of oats growin’ in the truck’s bed.
The spare tire’s flat and the battery’s dead,
Yes, the spare tire’s flat and the battery’s dead.
With a chug-a-chug a clunk and a rattle kling klang
My old Chev truck always starts with a bang.
She ain’t very fast and she rides a bit rough
But no one can say my old Chev’s not tough,
No, no one can say my old Chev’s not tough!
For 20 year’s and more she’s been workin’ like a horse
Haulin’ hay, wood and critters, and the family of course.
I’ll keep her ‘til she dies or the wrecker has no parts
Cause that old Chev truck has a place in my heart,
Yes, that old Chev truck has a place in my heart.
__________________________________________________________________I got to thinking about days gone by and all the different vehicles we had that got us from here to there in the last 40 years. I have a feeling most folks, like us, would have a pretty long list if they pondered that long a span. Memories, for me, are crystal clear but jumbled together a bit. I am afflicted with a warped time-line so I often know the "what" but the "when" is another thing entirely. So I picked my husband's brain while he was watching the news. He grudgingly granted me his usual amount of attention for a few fractured minutes to mull this over, while trying not to miss a single moment of news he'd already seen at least twice. In the end it seemed that he didn't remember much more than I do, or maybe he just wasn't able to multi-think.
When we first came to Alberta we had a '68 Volkswagen panel van. We had many adventures in that van. One time, while heading to California to return our visiting nephew, dog tired and a little desperate we pulled into a camp ground that was closed for the season. It was one of those inky black moonless nights. To top it off fog blanketed the forrest making visibility almost non-existent. We were inching along at a slow crawl, searching for a camp site, when we experienced a sudden tilt to the right. Upon investigation we found that the wheels on the passenger side had partially dropped off a ledge leaving us balanced on the edge of a deep ditch - deep enough that if we tipped into it we'd end up stranded on our side in the middle of nowhere. I put my wee little boy behind a guard rail and told him sternly not to move even one inch. Our nephew and I hung onto the outside of the driver side of the van to provide ballast and my husband fortunately was able to get enough purchase to drive the van back onto the road. My son remembers this as "One of those times you tried to kill me, Mom". He apparently also saw wading in the ocean on that same trip as another one of those times.
Another time, on our way home from the States, we came out of the mountains in Eastern Washington. I was driving and when I put my foot on the brakes nothing happened. I was remarkably "in-control" (remember, these are my memories) as I approached a red light in the small town we'd pulled into. "Dick", I said calmly, "we don't have any brakes." So I dropped a gear at a time (yes, I was receiving somewhat frantic instructions), headed up a hill and pulled off to the side, using first gear and gravity to come to a stop. Dick then took over. We drove downtown in low gear and gently eased into a diagonal parking space around the corner from a hardware store. But the curb failed to halt the van! There we were, on the sidewalk, heading slowly for the plate glass window at the front of the Washington State Bank! Employees and customers alike had their eyes trained on the approaching vehicle, surprise combined with fear freezing everyone in their tracks (a hippy version of Bonnie and Clyde planning to rob the bank?). We in turn were holding our breath, gritting our teeth and bracing for the worst. But we stopped. Had a good three feet to spare. With a Cheshire grin and a little wave we eased the van backwards into the parking space. Dick went to the hardware store and bought a nail to plug off the brake line and we limped our way back to Alberta.
The Van got smashed by someone running a stop sign in the Hills. We had a variety of trucks after that - an oil guzzling Ford which we got rid of pretty quickly; an old International, no power steering, one of those old beaters just hanging in there; an ancient blue one ton the RCMP used to stop nearly every time we took it on the road, just sure some standard or another wasn't up to snuff.
At long last we were able to buy something decent and got a brand new 1978 plain Jane Chev truck. This one stood us well until the bird incident several years later. My son, Owen, rescued a Robin that had stunned himself on our window. The robin wasn't recovering very fast and he was feeding him and trying his best to bring him back to health. Dick was doing a Border Collie training clinic at a horse arena near the city. The arena owners had offered to print the most recent edition of "That'll Do!" (a Border Collie magazine I was producing) on their photocopier, so Owen, the bird and I drove down to join Dick on the last day of the clinic. Since I was still left with the job of collating the journal after the clinic was done, Dick, Owen and the bird left for home in the truck leaving me at the arena. Half hour or so later I got a call from the Devon Hospital saying my son was there, but he was okay...there had been an accident...
So here's the story. Dick was checking out the bird who was perched on the back of the seat (they now call this distracted driving). Eyes back on the road he failed to react in time, ploughing smack dab into a big old clunker of a car turning left in front of him. Owen's head created a hole in the windshield, Dick was fine, the car he hit barely scratched, the truck was totalled, and I'll be damned if I can remember what happened to the bird.
After that we got a Mazda truck. It eventually met its demise with the aid of a moose. I can still see that moose. He was running sort of parallel to us at first. I watched him sorta roll over the cab in slow motion. The moose limped away. The Mazda did not.
For a while we had an old restored Chev which inspired the song included here, also two Nissan trucks, a Dodge Caravan and a Dakota. We had a variety of cars as well, the most noteworthy of them being an old blue Subaru which was given to us by a friend. It had been used to chase Buffalo on the southern prairies before we got it. It was tough to drive in the winter cause the heater was, to say the least, inadequate. I needed to wear warm winter gear and cover with a blanket, put the defrost on full just to make a wee hole in the windshield to see through. But it was my first car and I was determined. Owen told us many years later how he drove it on the fields, ramping over hills doing a "Dukes of Hazard" imitation - just one of the many stories we heard 20 years after the fact. He also roamed every bush trail within a ten mile radius on a little off-road motor bike.
I have a feeling some blog readers have colourful vehicle stories of their own. I'd love to read some in comments if you have an inclination to share.
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