Automobiles: The Pickup (Continued)

I didn't know that, if you buy a pickup, your weekends and several midweek days end up helping friends tote things around—big, heavy things like household appliances and pianos.  Okay, some Wichita friends used my pickup to move a piano for me when I was out of town.  But the point is still valid.

One day, my Wichita State colleague and good friend Jim Berlin told me that he wanted to make a sandbox in his back yard for his two boys, using a huge old airplane tire as a frame.  Jim asked if we could take my truck and go get some sand to fill up the tire.  “Sure,” I said.

I drove my half-ton pick-up to the sand place, kind of half-remembering that, the week before, a mechanic had told me that the pickup’s dicey clutch might last several more months, but that I should be careful with it.  So I carefully inched the truck into the tunnel under the three-story structure that held the gigantic chute that dispensed the sand.  The operator yelled “How much?” and Jim leaned out the right-side window and said “Let’s try a ton.”  With an electrifying rushing sound and then a deafening BLAM, the sand smashed into the bed of the pickup, which creaked and settled uneasily under the load.  “How‘s that?” asked the operator, and Jim, who was nothing if not expansive and good-hearted, said enthusiastically, “Let’s try another ton.”  Whoosh BLAM.  As I pulled slowly, ever so slowly out from under the sand chute, I could pretty much spin the steering wheel without altering the direction of the pickup, whose front wheels seemed only occasionally to drop down and touch the earth.

After a long, slow, agonizing trip, we got to Jim’s backyard and filled up the old airplane tire.  This used up at most a tenth of the sand in the truck bed.  So we started calling every young couple we knew, asking them if they wanted to build a sandbox for their kids.  Really, actually insisting that they build a sandbox for their kids.  We spent the rest of the day driving around Wichita and shoveling out sand, but at the end of the day, I still had about a ton of the stuff in the back of my truck.

Not surprisingly, I guess, this didn't really trouble me all that much.  The sand stayed there for well over a year, providing very good traction in winter.  No more fishtails for me, no sir.

One afternoon, while engaged in a philosophical discussion in Kirby’s bar across the street from Wichita State, I asked Jim Kirby, “Hey, why do they call my truck a half-ton?”  As an experienced bartender, Kirby had only a trace of a smile on his face.  “Well,” he explained at last, “that means it’s able to carry a half-ton load.”  Ah. 

As usual, this opinion prompted a lively discussion among that afternoon’s bar patrons, who varied greatly in cultural and educational backgrounds, to say nothing of sobriety.  Since the tavern’s denizens were notoriously given to making wagers (wagers, not wages), Kirby spoke for all in saying “Glenn, you’re never going to get rid of that sand.”

This stung a bit, and I replied, “Jim, I’ll bet you a beer that I’m going to sell it to the next guy who walks in the door.”  There was a general clamor as multiple side-bets were negotiated, and then everyone turned to stare expectantly at the door.

Pretty soon, actually, a guy walked in who had never been in the bar before.  He hadn't taken more than two or three steps when I said “How would you like to buy a ton of sand for $10.”  He said, “That’s incredible.  I just started putting in a patio.  I’d love to have some sand.”  So we delivered it right then.  When I got back to the bar an hour or so later, it was if I had just inherited the Coors brewery.  Complete amazement, hearty if bewildered congratulations, and of course one free beer.

Later, I drove this truck to the east coast when I got a job at Hampden-Sydney College, located about ten miles from Farmville in south-central Virginia.  Unfortunately, by then the pickup also had starter problems, so as I traveled east I could only stay at motels located on a hill, in order to be able coast down and get the engine going in the morning.  When I got to Farmville, I didn't stop and park, but immediately drove around town until I found a garage.  I pulled in and explained to the owner/mechanic about the truck not starting.  He said he wouldn't be able to get to it for a week.  I told him that I had just gotten into town for a job at Hampden-Sydney College (several miles from Farmville), and that I needed the truck to get to work. 

This gray-haired mechanic, clad in oil-stained bib overalls, and with his greasy hands on his hips, looked at me with steely eyes.  I immediately remembered the advice of my friend Georgie Cooper, born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, who told me just before I left for Virginia, "Ga-lenn-uh, if some old redneck tells you to 'mind yer own bidness,' you mind it!"

“You’re a teacher at Hampden-Sydney College?” he eventually asked in his Virginia drawl.

“Yes,” I said, “Just starting this semester.  I haven’t even found a place to stay yet.”

“What do you teach?”

“English.”

“Oh, Jesus,” he said.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked, a bit defensive, but trying to mind my own bidness.

“Oh, it’s not that,” he sighed.  “My son just got a masters degree in English.”

There was a significant pause.

“Look,” he said finally, “I know you don’t have any money.  I’ll tell you what—I’ll work on it this afternoon, and I’ll only charge you for parts.”

I always knew I had picked the right major.

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Much later, I received the following gift from Linda, Nancy, and Steve: