Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Have I said it lately? I Love My Truck.

It – that’s it – right here – is the second-coolest vehicle I have ever owned. The coolest vehicle I ever had – “owned” is stretching it, since I was all of 16 – is the 1970 Dodge Charger –- Oh My GOD. That’s it! Just tone down the blue a little; make it a little skyier; and give it a thin layer of dust, some dust in the wheel wells and hang some blue fuzzy dice from the rearview mirror – oh, and put the Confederate battle flag on a tag on the front – and THAT’S IT.

The Dukes of Hazzard
like to used up every last dang one of them –- 1968-1970, I think. You can tell the difference by the tail lights: the ’70 model has a rectangular light on each side; the ’69, and ’68 (I think) have circle tail lights.)

Ah, I waxed nostalgic about my Charger. I always have and I always will. I worshipped it, which is probably why the Lord saw fit to allow me to wreck it. I mean, the gal that hit me from behind wrecked it. She was in a 1966 Plymouth Fury – a tank – which suffered very little in the “incident,” which happened on Grand Avenue in Fort Smith, Ark., somewhere around 15th or 16th Street, not that I remember every detail or anything, but, of course, I do.

It was one of the only time my daddy rode with me, and it was the first time I cussed in front of him. After we got hit, and his head whipped back and hit the headrest, he shook it a little and said, “Did we get hit?” “We sure as hell did,” I said, and immediately felt bad. The only other time Daddy and I every really got into it was durin’ a Bible verse quotin’ argument. “Children, obey your parents!” he intoned. “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,” I retorted, whereupon he swatted at my backside, the only time ever, which, today, 25 or so years later, seems like it happened this morning.

I digress. Look at this, this handsome thing, but imagine that it’s silver, with running boards. I’m not that materialistic – I mean, I have three liberal arts degrees, for cryin’ out loud, none of which pay much. But I love my truck.

All us’ns, in the town where I grew up, loved our trucks. In fact, some of thought that’s what the Huey Lewis & the News song was about. We thought "I Want a New Drug" was “I Want a New Truck,” there for a while. Yes, one that won’t make us sick, please.

Hey, cut us some slack. Some of the same bunch of boys, about five years earlier, thought – would have SWORN – that the cool and funny C.W McCall song “Convoy” had the F-dash-dash-dash word in it!

As in: “We’ve got a f------ convoy, rockin’ through the night! We’ve got a f------ convoy,ain’t she a beautiful sight? …” Sue us. We were hearin’ it on a little portable record player, on the floor of sixth-grade home room, plugged into a wall socket in the bottom section of someone’s open-air “locker,” really just some shelves arranged to resembl lockers. Couldn’t trust us with real lockers, that we could lock.

This is the same home room where an embarrassment occurred to me that did not become fully manifest for years later.

Last day of class. We’re cleaning the room for Mr. Horn. I’m on a ladder going through stuff on the top shelf of the big closet at the back of the classroom. There’s a big box.

“My Horn, what do I do with this?” I asked. “Nothing. Leave it there. It’s full of cinnamon napkins,” he said. “Ah, OK,” I thought. “Whatever. There is that candy machine just inside the door of the girl’s bathroom.”

And not thinking too much on it, really, I “thought” somethin’ like, “girls … cinnamon napkins .. whatever …”

Later, someone asked ME what about the box. I said, “Mr. Horn said to leave it because it’s full of cinnamon napkins.” Whereupon Mr. Horn’s eyes buged out, watered up and he got so red I thought was fixin’ to explode.

And I was in high school before I put together “feminine napkins” and “cinnamon napkins,” a realization without which I would think my bloggin’ buddy Bitch a “cinnamist” (see part no. 445).

And ALL of this came to me on the 20-mile drive from the heart of The City to this here suburb where I hang my hat these days, in the best thing place I sat my buttocks today: My truck. (Not that I worship it Lord, just so you understand. It’s just pretty dang cool to have, and I don’t deserve it, so it’s gravy. Gracias, Dios Mio.

And THIS, kith and kin, is what you get when you put me sittin’ in a hardwood pew at the county courthouse ALL DAY, just listening, with no access to the ‘Net nor to a single soul I know. I get full. Of what, I will leave it to y’all to decide. :-)

###