I attended a Legislative conference in Gatlinburg, TN last week. It was a gathering of county road supervisors, county commissioners, and county mayors. The meeting was held at the Park Plaza Hotel high above Gatlinburg. The conference featured informative sessions and interesting speakers. I found networking with other mayors to be most beneficial.
I have never seen so many pickup trucks in one parking lot in my life. It got me to thinking about pickup trucks. When I left Gatlinburg, I had pickups on my mind. In three hours of driving, you see lots of pickup trucks, especially if pickups are your focus. Seems Chevrolets are especially popular these days.
My father was a GMC man. He purchased new GMC’s in ’48, ’58, and ’68. “Made in America” was his theme for most of his life.
The 1948 model was forest green in color and came equipped with a 4-speed floor shifter. First gear was a “granny low.” I declare. That truck could have pulled up stumps. It would pull a hay wagon loaded with 100 bales out of the river bottom and never break a sweat.
All three trucks arrived on our farm with a naked frame. My father preferred building custom truck beds. After the flatbed was constructed, he meticulously laid out a plan and built a “cattle rack.” The ’48 was green on green.
The 1958 model holds the most memories for me. By then we were a family of six. From 1959 until 1962 we all crammed into the cab of that truck on Sunday morning and on other family trips. My sister was born in1961 taking up another spot in the cab. My mother used to say we were “crammed in the truck like sardines.” (Of course, back then a can of sardines was packed tightly.) I recently opened a can of sardines to find two little fish that had plenty of room to swim around in the mustard sauce.
I learned how to drive a “straight shift” in the ’58, as did my three brothers. My father declared he replaced a clutch for each of us boys during our driver’s training in the hay fields. I can hear him now, as he shouted, “Stop riding the clutch!”
The ’58 was a 3-speed, on the column, and lacked the pulling power of the ’48. It was much lighter, built more for the road. It did well to make it out of the river bottom, loaded with 30 bales of hay. It was red in color, all the way around.
By 1968 my brother, Tom, was a junior at the University of Tennessee. When the models changed, my father bought the ’68. The cab was white - and you guessed it – the cattle rack was orange. I’ll bet we were the only farmers in the world who owned a ½ ton GMC pickup sporting a white cab and a custom built, orange truck bed. Power wise, that’68 wouldn’t pull the hat off your head.
My fondest memories of my father during those years saw him dressed in overalls, with the long sleeves of his shirt rolled up above his elbows. He wore high-top work shoes and what we called a “turtle shell hat.”
Several years after I had moved away and started my own family, I returned to visit the old homeplace one spring day. As I drove up the farm road which led to the house – a gravel road over which I had ridden in all those pickup trucks countless times – I saw him standing by his new pickup truck. It was a Toyota. He was wearing a baseball cap, a short-sleeved shirt, regular work pants, and Nike running shoes.
I could not help but thinking, “Wow, the world has changed!”
Copyright 2023 by Jack McCall
