I'm not currently privvy to any of those tales so I'll just cue up the Mississippi John Hurt station on my Pandora app and hash out some thoughts that struck me when I saw this truck earlier this week.
For me, the past is a passion. If you know me or have read my writing at all you know this. There's something about an old house, a crumbling cotton mill or an old truck. Then thre are the people that knew these as "home", "job" or "transportation". And then they have the stories of what made these things great.
Every day we lose history to the wrecking ball, to Alzheimers, to the Death Angel
And so sits the truck.
It isn't in any shape to serve its intended purpose. Even with meticulous maintenance and up keep, it just wouldn't be capable of filling the role it was intended to serve. There are bigger, more powerful, faster models now. It would be difficult and expensive to even find replacement parts for the old pumper. You can't exactly run down to Napa and pick up a transmission linkage for a 1950 Mack.
But you have to admit, the ol' gal has something that these new models just can't match. Those new trucks are red because models like this one were first. Those running boards carried men long before enclosed jump seats and seat belts. The open top was the tradition before air conditioning became standard. Then there's the details, many no longer visible or even present. that made her beautiful. Class. Grace. Style.
But she's just an old assemblage of metal parts, no longer useful. She might as well be in a scrapyard somewhere.
Or maybe a nursing home?
What?
I made a little transition there. It was intentional. I'm not trying to place a moral equivalence on a rusting fire engine and an elderly person in a home. Although many in our society have no problem whatsoever doing exactly that. On some level, I've been guilty of this myself.
Think about it. Not able to fill the old role, not quite as physically impressive as before, well versed in the old ways, a little sketchy on the new-fangled stuff, still has hints of the class and charm of the past but might have a few parts missing.
Ever known anyone like that?
I could make a list of such people that I wish I could tell me a few stories. But they can't. They'd understand how to ease through this "economic downturn". They'd probably laugh at it and tell us that they called it "Wednesday" because a man that walked miles to work did so because there was a job in the midst of a depression and even if the government was handing out checks, he had too much dignity to take one.
My how times have changed.
They could tell us about garden fresh vegetables and ration stamps. They were recycling materials for the war effort and turning in Coke bottles for the deposit before Al Gore was an inconvenient truth. They knew hard times and how to get by...and how to make sure their kids and grandkids wouldn't know times like that.
And we fouled that up.
Those old people used trucks like this one to make the world a better place. How many of us are here because someone used this old truck to save the life of a father, grandfather, great-grandfather? How many of us are here because a forgotten or neglected old man or woman was a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a soldier, a fireman, a musician, a cotton mill worker, a banker...well...you get what I'm saying.
Sometimes a rusty old truck isn't just a rusty old truck. Sometimes it's more. Same goes for that grumpy old man down the road. A lot of things can make a man grouchy. I've learned that sometimes its the weather in places like Bastogne, Chosin or the Mekong Delta. Sometimes it's the view from the scenic Winecoff Hotel or a stroll through the Cocoanut Grove.
You don't have to restore the old truck and drive it down the road. Old trucks and old people both pass on. That's the natural order of things. Time moves on. But as it does, give that old rusty truck a second thought or at least the benefit of the doubt. There's a good chance that it deserves it.
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