PAgent’s Progress

When the Wife and I got married, we were living in Eugene and we had one car — a Mazda 626 that she had purchased in graduate school. This worked out fine, as long as we didn’t have kids and I could ride my bike to work.

However, once we had a house, and I had a new job, having a single vehicle just wasn’t practical any more. Along about 1993, our neighbors down the street decided to sell their 1990 Ford F150 pickup. As a new homeowner, with a lawn that was 2/3 of an acre, I found myself often needing to haul stuff around. Long story short, we bought it.

“Big Red”, as we christened the red truck, was awesome. It was a full-size pickup, with a short bed. That meant it had plenty of hauling capacity, but wasn’t so long as to be cumbersome in traffic. It had a custom rear bumper, and a second gas tank, and was I think the last full-size pickup that you could order with a zero frills interior (no roof liner, no carpet, no fancy seat upholstery). It had a straight-six engine, virtually bullet-proof, and there was enough room under the hood that you could practically stand next to it when you were working on it.

I loved that truck. I used it to haul yard waste to Rexius, and often returned with a load of bark dust. I could get lumber from Jerry’s hardware, or haul a couple cubic yards of gravel. We helped numerous people move. More importantly, I could take that thing down logging roads and up to distant trailheads with impunity. Although it didn’t have 4-wheel drive, it rarely got stuck. It was user-friendly too: I replaced the heater core all by myself one night, in the pouring rain, because antifreeze mist was blowing up out of the defrost vents. It was a great truck.

When the kids came along, they loved it, too. I used to put my daughter’s car seat in the truck and we would go for drives together. She liked being high enough to see what was going on. And of course, climbing in and out of the bed was good for hours of amusement.

The truck became less practical once we had two kids. Now the whole family couldn’t pile into the truck any more. Then we relocated to Portland, and I started using it as a commuter vehicle. I drove Big Red to the Sunset Transit Center every morning and caught the MAX into town. I didn’t get to take it out into the woods as often, but the kids still loved to play in the bed.

One sunny morning in 2003, I was sitting in the turn lane waiting to turn left into the Sunset Transit Center, and the light changed. I began making a left turn, and had just enough time to think “That guy isn’t stopping…” when a convertible ran into me. The guy was taking his kid to school, and the rising sun was directly behind the traffic light as he came up the hill to the intersection. I don’t think he even touched the brake pedal.

I got my glasses knocked off by the impact, and they somehow ended up behind me and got crunched. The seatbelt kept me from getting too banged up, but I had a bruised knee, and bruises across the sternum from the chest belt. I got checked out at urgent care, but I was fine.

Big Red, on the other hand, was totaled. You can see the right front wheel was shoved sideways under the nose of the truck. What’s not quite as evident is the fact that the entire cab was bent at an angle with respect to the bed. It was seriously broke.

Unfortunately, I had to have a car. Equally unfortunately, we didn’t have any kind of a cash sum to use as a down payment (and obviously no trade-in). I ended up getting a 2000 Toyota Corolla, and it’s been a good little commuter car. It gets me to and from work, it gets good mileage, and we can fit the whole family in it, if the trip isn’t going to be too far.

But you can’t haul lumber in it. You can’t take it down remote logging roads. You can’t switch gas tanks and watch the needle magically rise from “E” to “F”. And your children won’t get much out of climbing in and out of the trunk of a Corolla.

At this point in my life, I couldn’t possibly justify getting another truck. The mileage is too poor, and I really do need something small and economical. But I still remember Big Red, oh so fondly; the throw of the stick shift, the bounce in the suspension, and the sure knowledge that when you merge people will get out of YOUR way. Oh, how I miss that truck.