Sunday, April 25, 2010

Sentimental Sunday The Hero and The Pick Up Truck

This was not told until the Hero was gone.  He made me promise to not tell my son-in-law while he was alive.  LOL  I think Red Beard already knew.
It all started with the Hero losing his job when the company he worked for was sold.  That is a more serious story.  One that will have to be told later.
The Hero had a 1979 pick up truck he loved. Well, maybe loved is too strong a word, he was really glad to have.  He had bought it from a sweet friend for a thousand dollars, because she needed to reduce her vehicles and we needed a pick up on the farm.  He also had done odd jobs to make ends meet.
When he lost his job, he decided to go into contracting business doing terrazzo floors and decks, etc.  My son-in-law decided that he wanted to do it too, so they went down this journey together along with my oldest son.
One job was in Wichita Falls, Texas.   Not too long after they arrived to do the job, the truck started having a challenge starting.  The Hero was short on money, so he devised the old time method of starting a standard, which entailed the boys pushing the pickup and him popping the clutch.  Ha Ha...I can still see the boys finding a hump in the road of the campground they were at, a slanted parking lot, a wide open space to push the truck and to get it started. This went on for 6 months.  The fellows would complain and fuss, but never did they refuse to push.
When that job was over and they finally came home, the Hero found a job that paid.  He then, took the truck in to get it fixed.

He came back home with the sheepish grin on his face and a twinkle in his eye, swearing me to secrecy, that it was the starter that had been the problem and it only cost 15 dollars to fix.  The guys would have given the 15 dollars to not look silly pushing the truck down the streets to get it going.  Ah, life is sometimes a jolly thing.

7 comments:

  1. Now that is funny. I had that same thing happen with a dryer when we were young and poor. The dryer coil went out, my husband was on unemployment, and we were feeling the pinch. So I hung the clothes all over the house to dry until he went back to work in the spring. When I went to the store to order the replacement coil, it was around ten dollars. It might have taken me a couple of weeks to squeak the ten dollars out, but I would not have had to wait till spring for the repair. I could have kicked myself all the way home, thinking how much work and aggravation that little dryer part would have saved me. How wonderful it is now to be able to price shop anything on the internet.

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  2. Oh, so glad to have my Sunday Hero story! Back in the days when we were young and ranching on a shoe string, parking on an incline and popping the clutch was not an uncommon experience. Fond memories in retrospect -- not necessarily so at the time. LOL

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  3. That's hilarious! Thanks for sharing your story (or rather, your secret) with us! :)

    Renate

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  4. Oh, my heavens, this sounds exactly like my Dad and his brothers. I think it was against their religion to have a car that totally worked. I didn't know you had been in the Wichita Falls area; Mom was from that area and we lived in Seymour for a few years.

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  6. Oh my gossh! I would have worked a few extra babysitting jobs to have had to push that thing in the cold morning before semanary! SO COLD!
    Shakes her head....he'll have to answer for that one someday. ;)
    mE

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  7. That is so funny! It reminds me of the car I drove in high school and college. Old green had a few quirks of her own but I loved that car! Thanks for sharing!

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