I don't know why my friend Joan sent me
Allen Swift's obituary, other than the fact he was the oldest living
owner of a vehicle that had been purchased new. I suspect it's because
she thought I held that title because I drove a truck that's so old it
didn't have a heated steering wheel, although it did have a heated seat
whenever I ate beans for breakfast. Even though my truck dated back to
1985, I'm a piker compared to Mr. Swift who owned his 1928 Rolls Royce
for 82 years and drove it until the day he died at 102 years of age. (I
could say something sarcastic here about the safety of 100 year old
drivers but I don't want to offend my target audience.)
Mr.
Swift got his Rolls Royce as a graduation present and drove it around
the world several times. (I tried that in my old truck but it always
died when it got sea water in its muffler.) I paid $14,000 for my 1985
three quarter ton, long bed, Chevy pickup and it too was in immaculate
condition except for a door made entirely from Bondo and alfalfa that
grew through the seat covers. I think it would qualify as the oldest
ranch truck owned by the original owner that could still go zero to
sixty in three months.
I've always
said that life is a series of dogs, horses, trucks and spouses and in my
66 years I've had 14 dogs, one lovable horse, one wonderful wife and
five pickups. Sadly, only the wife is still with us.
So,
we recently went to look at new trucks and I didn't have sticker shock…
I had sticker heart attack. When they told me the truck I liked would
cost $65,000 they had to use the defibrillator paddles on me the car
agency kept handy to bring cheapskates like me back to life. When they
said the sales tax would be $5,000 and the total price was double what I
paid for my first house, I called Homeland Security and turned them in
for using weapons of math destruction.
Since
I literally drive my vehicles till their wheels fall off, it had been
33 years since I'd last bought a truck. I was amazed by all the
wonderful new features such as cruise control, heated mirrors, rear
window defoggers and keyless entry. My 1985 Chevy truck had keyless
entry too but that was just because thieves had broken a wind wing.
Remember those?
I was puzzled by one feature on the new trucks and that was the braille
on the steering wheel. I'll admit, I haven't been to town for awhile but
are we now allowing the blind to drive? I also wondered about features
called Sirius/XM and Bluetooth, which sounded to me like the truck
needed deworming. But I had to admit, I liked the TV screen in the
dashboard. The only time my old truck had a TV in the cab was when we
bought a new one at Costco and hauled it home inside the truck because
the rear end was filled with toilet paper, dog food and soda pop.
No comments:
Post a Comment