Blast from the past..

Every morning during high school, I'd climb into my 84 grey and black chevy pickup, and while it was warming up, I'd search for my daily theme song.  I could not leave my driveway until I found THE song.  Now for those of you that have driven vehicles from 1990 and older, you know what I mean by warming up.  Even in the summer you'd have to let it run a few minutes or it would die as soon as you put it in drive.  If it was winter, well you couldn't take off for like 10 minutes, sometimes more.

My old truck, I called The Fonze, would have been on the POS car list.  For instance:

Under my black and grey striped seat cover there was a seat so holey and worn, it hid the folded up old towel under the driver.  You moved that and you'd sink into the springs. 

The radio had to be kicked to be turned on half the time, leaving skid marks on the dashboard where many a shoe had kicked.

The doors had to be closed multiple times before they actually latched shut.  And not just closed but slammed so hard it rattled your teeth and shook the whole truck.

To turn it on, you had to hold down the gas and floor it a few times or else it would die, and since it was a loud truck, everyone would hear me VROOM VROOM VROOOOOOOMING, every morning.  Once after school I was told by a cop that I was disturbing the peace and he accused me of making the noise on purpose.  I then had to show him that nope, I'd rather not have that kind of attention nor am I that retarded, but it was either that or it wouldn't stay on.  Sadly this guy knew me and my family and have known us for YEARS, he still felt the need to play Mr. Hard-ass-cop and pull into the school parking lot to do his impersonation of Barney Fife.  :) I can give him hell now he's no longer a cop.  He drove away laughing at my wonderful truck.

Daddy told me that it couldn't go over 65mph because it was a rebuilt motor and it would die if I tried to go faster than that.  Now, I know that he told me this so I wouldn't speed, although HELLO paranoid freak here doesn't like to get near 70, he must have been confusing me with one of my sisters. I wasn't allowed to leave town, because again, rebuilt motor may not make it far, this was before cell phones were so popular, I'd have no help if it did die.  Again I'm pretty sure this was done to keep me out of trouble and AGAIN, book worm here spent her weekends at the bowling alley and the movie theatre...I'm a wild cat, I can't believe they even let me leave the house.  Yet surprisingly my gas tank was always on empty.  All my friends lived within 10 minutes, and if I wasn't at their house or my boyfriend's house, I was a block away at school, or at home, there's no way that much driving sucks up a full tank of gas in two days.  I was blamed for sneaking out, which is funny considering the truck was so damn loud they would have heard me start it.  Come to find out, the gas tank had a leak and we didn't know this until we sold it to my BIL....I received an apology three years too late.

But my favorite thing about this truck was the steering wheel that took TWO, yes two people to turn.  Why?  Well turns out there was no power steering fluid in the truck, my dad didn't think it even had power steering...I love my Daddy, but as you can see he doesn't know that much about vehicles.  This is the only reason I was thankful I couldn't leave town in this truck.  Can you imagine driving this thing in traffic, and trying to turn the damn wheel while everyone around you is dying laughing as you support yourself by putting one leg on the door still keeping the other one on the gas, laying sideways on the seat and pulling with all your might?  That is what I had to do if I was alone.  This is why I never went anywhere by myself unless I had to.

I don't know why I thought of my old truck this morning but I did.  And like always it made me all misty, because although it was a pile of junk, I loved that damn thing.  I remember finding all the sunflower seeds our friend Sarah was so obsessed with all over the truck.  I remember how my friends and I used to hang out in the bed of the truck and watch the stars or the clouds and talk about the future.  I remember all the making out I did in the bed and inside the cab with my boyfriends....ah those are some good memories.  I remember the times we climbed in through the back glass just to see if we could fit.  Which was a tough feat considering that window didn't open all the way sometimes, leaving your head in the cab and your ass in the bed of the truck. 

I miss those days.  What happened to The Fonze you may (or may not) be wondering?  Well after BIL bought it, the engine block (I'm hoping I've got the right term here) froze and cracked in the middle of winter.  He sold it to a junk yard and it was inevitably crushed.  I managed to find a truck similar to what mine looked like, except the colors were faded and swapped (grey with black stripe).  I also had roll bars, hehe, all the boys made fun of me and said it looked stupid since it wasn't a four wheel drive.  I still don't see why that was such a big deal, I thought it looked awesome.

What is one thing from your past that still brings a smile to your face?