Pick Up Trucks

Our ranch manager helped me transfer a number of boxes from our cabin to the pump room. Not a long distance, but enough of a schlep that I would have had to make several trips. We piled the cartons in the back of his pickup, and I sat on the tail gate while he backed up to the pump room. Once unloaded, I hopped (in a manner of speaking) back on and told him I was set for the ride back to his cabin and the barn.

Few things never change: riding in the back of a truck, legs dangling from the tailgate is one of them. The metal warmed my legs; the truck jounced and creaked through the potholes of the ranch road; wind stirred the cottonwoods and aspens; the mountains and fenceposts and irrigation ditches remained in exactly the same spots they were sixty-five years ago. I could not have been more content. Had my driver been headed the eleven miles to town, I would have stayed put on the tailgate, though I wonder if such things are illegal now. Probably. No seat belts in sight.

Find yourself a pickup and an amenable driver. Or find yourself something that connects directly to your childhood. Climb a tree. Jump in a stream. Listen to some music from your youth. Read a book you loved as a teen. Lie on your back in the grass. Play jacks or marbles. Borrow a hula hoop. Jump rope.  Doesn’t have to be for long. Just do it. 

Author: Glass

I retired in July after forty-six years in independent school education. I taught students in classes from PreK-12, was a middle school head for many years, and a head of school for 17. View all posts by Glass