SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

And then there was the pickup truck

By Julie Carter

Nothing will spawn a parking lot full of pickup trucks faster than a free meal or the promise of a good “bull” session. The hope for both is even better bait.

It is always interesting to me how you can “read” the group gathered within by the vehicles parked outside.

Recently I attended a luncheon meeting that assembled at a swanky county club by a lake and golf course. The four middle rows closest to the door were full of bumper to bumper, door to door gray, white and the occasional Forest Service green trucks. “Yep,” I thought, “free meal.”

The occasion was a gathering of an assortment of government agencies all tied together by a weaving of entities only the government could create and no one understands. And they all drive pickup trucks.

As I parked my truck, I glanced across the parking lot to discern if there was possibly some golf bags discreetly placed in any of those vehicles for later afternoon recreation. After all, it was certainly a convenient opportunity.

While I didn’t see any golf equipment, I did notice that most those vehicles were fairly clean and certainly cleaner than mine. I know some of them have to, on occasion, drive down a dirt road to government projects. But it appears they find a car wash more often than some of us.

Every year in December, a gathering of hundreds of ranchers and other ag related people assemble in a big fancy hotel in Albuquerque for their annual “stockman’s convention.” Now there is a picture of glaring contrast between urban and rural.

Although the hotel still draws its usual crowd of fancy car drivers, they are only a peppering of class throughout the overflowing parking area. Towering above the Cadillac’s, Lexus’s and Lincolns are row after row of big heavy duty four-wheel-drive three quarter or one ton pickups in both the standard and flat bed versions.

If an onlooker has any sense of the rural world in New Mexico, they know these are bona fide ranch trucks. A closer look will reveal a selection of mud in colors to match the geography of the originating ranch. Ropes, chains, handyman jacks, tool boxes and even an occasional errant mineral block yet to be fed to the cattle adorn most of them.

Big dirty pickup trucks in large numbers. How can I convey to the average person what a sense of comfort that sight brings? It is like arriving home in the dark to see the lights in the house turned on, feel a warm fire and smell a cooking pot roast and baking bread when you step in the door. That kind of assurance all bundled up in the metal of a dirty pickup.

This particular parking lot, or any one looking just like it, tells me that gathered inside are large numbers of the very heart and soul of the land we walk on. Within those walls are fourth and fifth generations of families who endured hardships that we can only imagine to make the land their home.

And for as long as those ranch pickup drivers can still assemble to plan the future of agriculture, there will always be hope for the future. They can’t make it rain and they can’t control the markets. But they can and do encourage and share their grit to endure. It is a birthright for each of them.

© Julie Carter 2005