The Big Red Truck

Growing up, my sister and I spent weekends at the farm with Dad. Every Friday evening during that first summer of my parents’ divorce, the big red truck’s arrival signified the beginning of the weekend. We would pile into the bench seat with our monogrammed overnight bags and bounce along the country roads on our way to our eden. Each Friday evening trip would include a stop at the Meating Place (the local butcher shop—whose clever name was lost on me until well into adulthood) where Dad would run in to pick up local milk and other supplies for his weekend with the girls. I still remember the smell and feel of that cool-to-the-touch paper shopping bag filled with our weekend rations.

Dad would come straight from work to pick us up on Fridays. I remember thinking how dapper he always looked in his navy dress slacks and crisply ironed oxford shirt. That first hug was always the best. The smell of his line-dried shirt mixed with the scent of tobacco from the soft pack of Winstons in his breast pocket, which crinkled gently when he squeezed you, was a familiar comfort.

The Big Red Truck at the farm in the late 1980s

Weekends were typically equal parts play and work. Saturday mornings were one of my favorites: a trip to the dump. (Stay with me here.) When you live way out in the country, there is no trash service, so you have to haul your weekly trash to the dump. I loved these trips because we would once again pile into the bench seat of the big red truck, often burning our thighs on the black vinyl seat. If you were in the middle of the bench, you had to position your knees just right, so that dad could shift gears on the gargantuan stick shift. I can still remember his right hand resting on the shifter while he scanned the radio for the best classic country. These trips to the dump were an absolute dream: listening to Willie Nelson and Randy Travis with the windows open, lumbering along the country roads just the three of us.

The Big Orange Truck in 2022

The rest of these early childhood weekends usually consisted of my sister and I playing some sort of make-believe. Our two favorite scenarios were “school” (self-explanatory) or “sylvanians” (pretending to be woodland creatures). One of Dad’s favorite games to play with us was “pick-up sticks,” which wasn’t a game at all, it was brush cleanup. But we didn’t mind; it meant another ride in the big red truck. This time we would get to ride in the bed. Climbing up the tires and tailgate, leaping out like fearless superheros, the truck was our personal jungle gym. Sitting on the wheel wells in the bed of the truck, we bounded through the fields toward whatever chore awaited us.

Dad eventually got a more sensible family car for us to take road trips and vacations, but the big red truck remained a farm staple. I learned how to drive a manual transmission in that truck … probably on the way back from the dump. It hauled firewood, fence posts, brush, lumber, and trash. We tied chains to it to right fallen trees after storms. It transported life-sustaining water the summer our spring ran dry. That truck allowed us to live with the land, to live the life Dad envisioned out at the farm. It was our workhorse. I loved the big red truck and what it symbolized. I can still hear the creak of the door and the sound of the engine, and I can still smell the cab in my mind: a mix of tobacco, hay, and hard work.