Imagine being at the dawn of civilization when you were still gathering and hauling provisions with the use of only your arms. Being forty-five and tired, one day, while carrying a few pieces of oak to burn, you see in the distance what looks to be a giant dog (really a horse) with a wheeled-box attached to its back by two rods and some rope. By a fasten-chair on front of the box is sitting a jolly-o, heavy-set gentlemen singing the latest poems uttered by the priestly-class-chores. As the oversize dog and man approach closer, you notice the box overflowing with firewood at lest 60 arms full. jealously and envy fill your heart, as you look in awe and amazement to the ingenuity of this chubby man, while simultaneously recollecting the lesson from the Cain and Able story, lest you murder this man on the spot.
This is how I imagine the average person experiences the first pickup truck. Well, I guess it isn’t the first pickup per se, but the function of the horse and cart is the same as a pickup. Mankind needs for something else to do its hard work. We simply lack the strength horses’ posses to pull large amounts of raw materials to strategic locations. No matter how well trained a dozen men are at pulling the royal carriage, they simply lack the grace and beauty of the Clydesdale horses gliding through the streets with the precious cargo, as portrayed in the Budweiser ads. A wheelbarrow is about all a human can manage, and even here, notice he is still using technology to do his labor.
In April 1925, the Ford Model T Runabout is the fist pickup to officially put the horse and cart out of popular usage. These trucks are simply for utility, lacking all flares. I imagine, and here I am only speculating, if a young fellow is wanting to impress a girl, the worse possible advice he should follow is to boast confidently about his pickup truck and all its usage: “Yeah … I can fit about 4 dozen chickens in this baby.” Such a move is not going to get the desired first kiss. If in doubt about this, try showing up at your next first date with an Ups truck, and talk about all the different types of boxes you can haul. I bet you’ll really wow her!
If you have never had the opportunity to go to a car show, I suggest you do. To see the old cars and trucks restored is a pretty awesome experience. I know nothing about cars or trucks, but I do pride myself, as much as I can, at knowing a good looking truck verses a piece of crap. Beauty is a transcendental, portraying itself in all man’s crafts. A hammer, if made with the right materials and assembled in the right way is most assuredly a piece of art. Likewise, a pickup truck, while best used when loaned out to move some else’s refrigerator, can also have the dazzle to awe its owner and cause the precipitation of drool in bystanders. Yet, it can’t be just any model of pickup to have such an affect; just as it can’t be any hammer. It isn’t possible for a 1989 Chevy pickup to ever look as delightful as the 1957 Chevy pickup. Restoring a 1989 Chevy pickup is like restoring a medal-folding chair in your closet. Some things are best decomposing.
Yet, some people might feel differently about this than me. I can imagine some pimply faced, small town 17 year old named Bobby thinking it is the coolest thing sense baseball cards to restore a 1989 Chevy pickup. After watch an MTV show about “pimping” a car, Bobby drops five grand in new flashy rims, hydraulics, and tinted windows, while spending another grand on a stereo system blaring Eminem. Pulling up to the town square on a Friday night in his newly decked out pickup truck, he wonders why people are laughing and calling him “that guy”. You see, no matter how much money you put into a 1989 Chevy pickup, it will never result in others desiring your presence. Bobby’s whole project is like pimping out a Chevrolet Corsica. No gangster would ever dream of doing it. In this case, Bobby should have just stopped at coveting the car on MTV. But by him attempting to pimp out a 1989 Chevy pickup, he acts like many of you did at the dawn of civilization when after seeing the jolly-o gentlemen pass by, you strapped a few wheels and a box to your pet ostrich. It can be done, but should it?
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