Part one

It sounds and feels like the most natural thing in the world to call my favorite pair of sunglasses my Dearly Beloveds.

But to fix a name to our old feed truck is a lot harder to do.  It needs a name.  It has the character to stand back against the wall and defend its name.  I suppose part of the problem is, that for me, names need to be right, and sometimes it takes a while for a name to settle in as right.  Boola is right for my dog.  No ands, ifs or buts.  Of course, Bryce and the rest of the family will disagree on that point, but then they haven’t a feel for names quite like I do.

I imagine the closest I might come to a name for the old girl would be Katie. That would come from a childhood memory of a story read to me about a valiant snowplow who cleared the roads.

This may turn into a two-part dilemma yet if I’m not careful.  My friend Savanna says I write way too long on my stuff.  I’m sure she will groan when she reads this piece.  But, seeing she has had a bit of interaction with the old girl herself, maybe she will forgive me this time.

I was driving along the road one day, pondering things and life in general, and my thoughts drifted over to our cattle (or lack thereof) operation.  Our pens were primitive, and our feeding system even more so.  What, I wondered, was the best direction to pursue regarding it?

On a whim, I pulled my phone out and swerving enough to make my wife chirp, had she been with me, typed in Craigslist in the search bar.  I had never been on Craigslist before and didn’t know what to expect.  Next, I typed in ‘feed truck’ in the search bar.  Immediately a listing popped up for a 1979 Ford truck with a Harsh feed box and electric scale on it near Ulysses.  It was approximately 50 miles from me and would sell for $4,500.

Since I had yet to even ride in a feed truck, much less understand how they ran or any other what ifs about them, I called my friend Travis and gave him a bit of a run down.  I asked him his opinion.  He said if I wasn’t going to buy it, he would buy it basically sight unseen to have around for a loaner whenever his main feed truck needed repair.   He said it was a very good deal and shouldn’t be passed up.

Somewhere in our conversation Travis offered to ride out there and take a look at it with me.  The pictures all looked favorable enough, but with it being so old we wanted to check it out a bit better.  I think Travis sensed how very little I knew about it all and felt it would be best to go along to save me from myself. 

It’s good to have friends like that.

We arrived and looked the old girl over.  The man who had it for sale was gone, but his 11-year-old son was an excellent representative in place of his Dad.  They had done an impeccable job of cleaning her up.  I felt bad for the old girl immediately, because I knew it was probably as clean as she had ever been and ever would be. 

Travis looked things over and mentioned several definite advantages to her, and we decided to take her for a test drive.  She fired right up, sans mufflers, sans brakes, sans title, sans gauges.  Sans means without, or minus, in case you wondered.  We toodled right along up to 25 m.p.h. and that’s when she let a bit of her personality show.  She didn’t want to go any faster, and that was that.  She threw a small hissy fit and muttered a few dirty words.  I can’t print them here out of respect to her since she had a change of heart later.  In fact, you wouldn’t recognize her today from what she used to be back then, she’s so changed and all.  And, Travis told me 25 m.p.h. was plenty fast enough for a feed truck around the pens and that he would still buy her as she was. 

We rolled back up to the yard, and what feeble brakes we had faded out almost entirely.  We shut her down, and then she showed us another side of her nature.  Water was spitting out from a crack in her radiator.   

Not to be outdone, as we wanted to take her home with us, sulky personality and all, Travis asked the lad on hand if they had any superglue and Styrofoam cups.  He ran off to get us some.  He told me if you break the Styrofoam into small pieces and mix it with superglue, it forms a very durable, binding paste quite similar to J. B. Weld. 

I was amazed at his ingenuity and in no time at all we had the paste mixed up and applied to the top part of the radiator.  I was a bit dubious as to whether it would work.  We let it dry and harden and then fired the old girl back up.  His paste was the real deal, but the ole girl just arched her osteoporotic back, moved over to another weak spot in radiator and hissed angrily at us from there.  It was obvious the ole girl was feeling threatened by the prospect of new ownership. The man selling it called about that time and I explained what we were up against.  He generously offered to get the radiator fixed for us and we could come back in two weeks to pick the girl up.  We agreed and I told him I was interested in buying a gooseneck stock trailer that was for sale on his yard.  He seemed stoked by that. 

Sometimes, we play a game around here called Scotland Yard.  In this game there is a bad guy, called Mr X who wears a black cap and who plots his way around the board while trying his best not to get caught.  He operates in secret, but all the while he sits in the hot seat with the rest of us trying to figure him out.

I felt like Mr X driving that old girl home. 

I didn’t have much, if any brakes.  I had to predict well ahead what the road might do and what traffic might cross.  I didn’t have a title or tag, so I took as many back roads and field roads as possible.  I didn’t have any gauges, and didn’t know the old girl very well yet; I also knew she was still sulking at new ownership and didn’t know what tantrum she might choose to display and where.  

I soon found she liked coaxing and coddling.  She seemed to be sort of an attention addict.  Coax her, coddle her just right and she responded by letting me drive her more than 25 m.p.h.  But overdo it, and she immediately gave up and headed for the shoulder of the road.  And she gave me the cold shoulder for some minutes afterward whilst I learned my valuable lessons regarding her.  We soon came to a fairly good understanding, and she started to trust me more and more, so that by the time we were half-way home I had her hand, and she had me on my knees with humble gratitude, and also temporarily deaf.

I still say it’s a wonder we made it home without a breakdown.  Although I overshot our drive because I forgot I didn’t have brakes and had to back up. 

We definitely had a love/hate relationship during those first few months together.

The boys and I went over every detail of her, changing bearings and modifying as we thought best.  When we felt brave enough, we ordered a load of corn and started mixing it with roughage to begin our foray into the calf starting, small feedlot business. 

There were days when she went back to her old habits, and we nigh well lost our patience with her, but it wasn’t long, and she joined us and started pulling with us every step of the way. 

When she did that, it was as though she was young all over again, and today, I think she is the most liked piece of machinery by everyone in the family.

Okay Savanna, you win.  This will be part one.