This Old Truck

It's Sunday and time to tell a story and sell some yarn. I've had a hard time finding my motivation. Not to sell yarn, but to tell stories. I've debated on retiring the stories and let someone else write them.

Winter is only about three weeks old and I'm a little burned out with the wind and gloomy skies. Maybe that's my problem. Compound that with Elaine and I having been under the weather with a cough that can't be defeated and won't give up. Before you ask the beervirus question, we don't have it.

The high part of the winter has been Elaine's new found addiction to football. She is even taping the games if she can't watch in real time. Elaine doesn't wach all the games and she doesn't like all the teams. She has her teams and her "boys". I haven't quite been able to figure out why she likes who she likes. Elaine settles in with knitting needles, a ball or two of yarn and something to drink. She is ready to watch her "boys".

Last Monday night, Elaine was watching one of her boys, the one from Wyoming, when a player was critically injured. I had already nodded off. Needless to say the injured player is now one of Elaine's boys, and truthfully he should be one of all our boys. Pray for the kid.

Personally, I'm glad when it is spring and football is gone. I doon't have the love for the game that Elaine has developed. Of course, I don't care that only one player playing last night had turquoise shoes. I don't care that those turquoise shoes have gold colored soles. Did anyone of you know that behind the goalpost on the field last night have two lights that look like cat eyes?

I do have good news about something that happened this winter. OK, summer/fall/winter. When I was forced to turn in my company provided pickup truck in October 2021, it left Elaine and I with only one vehicle. For quite a while it wasn't a problem because I couldn't walk let alone drive. Bui I fooled them, I atarted to walk again.

When I said we had only one vehicle, I wouldn't be telling the whole truth. Have you ever noticed when you are driving in a rural area, a lot of farmer/ranchers have what looks like a perfectly good vehicle sitting in a pasture away from the house? If you have wondered why that vehicle is out there, it is most likely because the farmer/rancher wanted to keep it for some reason and his wife didn't want to look at it, so the farmer/rancher places it where the wife doesn't see it everyday.

When Elaine and I moved up here, I stuck a pickup in the pasture. Not right away, it took a few years for me to become a real farmer/rancher.

Last summer, having only one vehicle started becoming a problem. It was time to buy another vehicle or maybe walk out to the pasture. I chose to walk out to the pasture. The pickup was not quite as I remembered it. The driver's side mirror was broken. The windshield was broken. It had been home to more than one mouse. But you know, it didn't look too bad.

I started looking for advice. Boy Twin was happy to provide an opinion. He informed me when he played in the truck as a child, the dashboard would smoke when he tried to start the pickup. He didn't know how the mirror and windshield were broken, but it couldn't have been anything he had done.

I decided to cost out repairing the truck. After sitting for eight years (plates expired in 2014) we charged the battery and the truck started. I had the truck towed to a friend's garage to get it back on the road.

I love that truck, that's why I parked it out in the pasture. My friend finished the truck a couple weeks ago. I'm driving it again.

I have so much history with that truck. I loaned it to my son (the twins dad) once to help a friend move. Sometime/somehow the truck went to a party after they were finished with the move. The police found the truck the next morning crashed into the side of a parked van. It's a mystery.

Elaine and Ivy parked the truck in a restaurant parking lot while moving to our home in the mountains. They noticed the truck was smashed when they return after eating their lunch. Another mystery. I had the pickup box removed and installed a flatbed to haul hay.

I have a huge plethora of stories, like the one where I was stopped by a state patrolman and I didn't have current plates. She didn't care, she didn't ask for license, registration, or insurance. She just want to make sure my load was secure.

I'm so happy to have the truck back and operating safely. I can deliver yarn, and be happy to do it.

Buy yarn. God Bless Elaine's boys. God Bless you guys. Stay healthy.

Our crazy lives!

Monner