(Refined and expanded since first published January 2, 2013) You must be looking at this picture and saying, “A ’92 F-150! What in the world is so special about this?”
I agree as there is nothing particularly special about it. It’s a regular cab two-wheel drive pickup with an 8′ bed, a 302 cubic inch (5.0 liter) V8, and an automatic. Ford built a bajillion of them for ’92. So there is nothing special about it – at first blush.
What makes it special is what I have learned and realized in the cab of this pickup. Pickups seem to have an innate ability to bring people together and this one is no different. It was twenty years ago last week I made a day trip in this very F-150 with my maternal grandfather, “Albert”.
You have met Albert in various articles. These events involving him are all true. Today’s snippet of history takes place when Grandpa was 68.
Grandpa purchased this F-150 two days after Thanksgiving in November 1992. His 1979 Chevrolet Scottsdale’s 305 cubic inch (5.0 liter) V8 had died repeatedly prior to leaving the driveway on Thanksgiving morning and Grandpa had had enough of General Motors.
I had turned twenty in September of that year and life wasn’t all milk and honey; I had just transferred to a different university and my parents had separated a month after my move. A large part of my angst was from having to grow up so rapidly.
Part of my own personal fall-out from the new school and separation was getting a few less than stellar grades in multiple classes that semester. I knew one instance was bogus, so I decided to spend a day of my precious Christmas break to trek back to the university and correct it.
My grandparents live just south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Yes, if you listen to a particular talk-radio show on U.S. airwaves, you’ve likely heard of it as the host was born and raised there. I, too, was born there (in the same hospital, even) and grew up nearby.
I had transferred to the University of Missouri – Rolla (referred to as the “Harvard for Engineers” by some), a distance of 175 miles and about 3.5 hours from Cape. The route I took was mostly hilly and curvy two-lane roads, some of which meandered through portions of the Mark Twain National Forest. I asked Grandpa Albert if he wanted to go; not only did he agree, he even volunteered his new F-150 which had all of 660 miles on it.
I knew I was officially an adult when he told me to drive.
We’ve all likely heard the adage of how to best learn about a person is to travel with them. Whoever coined this phrase was a genius. I will also hypothesize that to learn about yourself you need to learn about your family. Everyone’s quirks are genetic to a degree and exposure to your family and childhood environment has certainly influenced you as a person, thus creating the rest of your quirks.
I had not had very many involved conversations with my grandfather while growing up. He is not a quiet man but he doesn’t babble, either. Knowing this, I didn’t quite know how the trip would pan out. Seven hours in a vehicle with somebody can be a painfully long time if there isn’t much talking. I got much more than I would have ever imagined.
Leaving around daybreak, the trip started off with small talk such as the weather and what drove him to purchasing a Ford.
“You know, I’ve bought nine brand new vehicles from General Motors. That ’79 pickup was a piece of shit after a few years. And that ’77 Impala…that thing must have been dropped on something at the factory as it never did drive right. It’s why I bought the two Dodge’s – the ’85 Aries and the ’88 Dynasty.”
I inquired if he had looked at anything else when pickup shopping.
“Chevy was out; the Dodge’s looked okay, but didn’t impress me. I went to the Ford dealer in Marble Hill and drove a Ranger. It was pretty basic. Hell, you know you long it’s been since I drove a straight shift transmission? I haven’t owned one since right after I married your grandma.
“Well, I got in that Ranger. Me and ma filled up the whole cab.” It should be noted Grandpa is 6’1″ and Grandma Iris is 5’10”; they are not overweight, but they are big-boned people. “That salesman said, ‘Mr. Lambert, you sure about this pickup?’ I said I’d give it a try and tried to take off. Killed the son of a bitch three times, then forgot and crossed my legs for the brake and clutch. I got out and told that salesman that thing was a tin-can deathtrap and I wanted to see a real pickup. So we went to look at an F-150.”
We continued on down the road, venturing into one of the more desolate locations of our voyage. Grandpa is one who can talk about anything, but for some subjects he has to be in the right frame of mind; any inquiries when he isn’t in the mood are met with your questions being shrugged off or ignored. He voluntarily hit upon one of his two usually taboo subjects – his childhood, in this instance – as we hit the hill country in the Mark Twain National Forest. His disclosures were remarkably well punctuated by the downshifting of the 302 V8 in the F-150 pulling some steep hills.
“Kids have things differently these days.” This was making me curious as he didn’t typically subscribe to such trite philosophies. “When I was ten years old, I had to collect rent on the houses we had in Cape. Trying to do that during the Depression was a damn joke. Damn people burned up 20 rental houses.”
What? I knew exactly zero about any of this.
“Yeah, mom, her sisters, and brother had rental houses on the south end of Cape. Damn people would tear out the interior walls and burn them for firewood. They would run outside with whatever rent they had and not let you see inside. Then after a while when I would see the roof sagging, I knew that was about the end of that house. I’d tell Mom and never would have to go back. There’s no telling what she would do at that point.”
My interest was at its peak as this was all virgin territory for me.
“Mom and her brother and sisters had the rental houses. Mom and Aunt Amelia really got the shaft in that deal. When their parents died, they left everything to Uncle Henry except the rental houses, which were to be split among the three of them. They figured dad and Aunt Meelie’s husband would take care of them. Nobody figured their husbands would die so early; hell, I was three when dad died. I don’t even remember him. So Uncle Henry came out pretty good, but the worthless bastard never drew another sober breath after getting everything.”
Grandpa reached over to turn the heat down a few degrees.
“How can a person go their whole life and never work a single day? Henry did. Hell, he drank up five sawmills and eight farms. One time, just before I got drafted, he came home drunker than Cooty Brown. He crawled down naked inside a feather mattress, fell asleep, and shit himself. Guess who had to pull him out? I started pulling and he started screaming. Come to find out he had a broken leg. Talk about a mess. There was poop and feathers stuck all over him – it was raunchy. All he was doing was fighting against me while yelling and screaming in German. Damn drunk.
“Mom always spoke nothing but German to Henry and her sisters. It worked out pretty well during the war for me.”
It was about that time we were coming into St. James, about eight miles from our final destination of Rolla. As Grandpa is sometimes prone to do, he will abruptly change the subject before follow-up can happen. He did so as I was merging onto the interstate.
“Damn, there’s a lot of traffic on I-44. Watch out so you don’t get our asses ran over.”
After a few hours of getting my business taken care of – successfully, I might add – we got back in Grandpa’s F-150 for the trip home. Despite being the same body style as an ’84 F-150 my dad had at the time – and which I had driven extensively in high school – the degree of comfort and power between the two was remarkable. Granted, Grandpa’s was the higher end XLT model whereas my dad’s was an el cheapo model. At the time, Dad’s only had about 40,000 miles on it (he would trade it in 1998 with just over 50,000 miles) and it was powered by a 300 cubic inch (4.9 liter) straight six. New or not, Grandpa’s pickup was light years ahead of the ’84. Ford did a great job refining the overall package.
Before we left Rolla, I asked Grandpa if he wanted to stop for fuel. The primary tank was not full when we had left that morning and it was getting low. I didn’t know if there was fuel in the secondary tank. As I joked he could get some cigarettes (he had quit smoking prior to my being born) the conversation turned to his other usually taboo subject – World War II. I quickly realized he was around twenty years-old, the same as I was at the time, when these events happened.
He had been an airplane mechanic in the Army Air Forces stationed in England, as he often puts it, “between Liverpool and Blackpool”. I have since learned he was actually within eyeshot of the small town of Freckleton. He was a witness and first-responder on that sad, rainy day in August 1944 when a B-24 crashed in the middle of town, hitting the elementary school and killing 61 people, including 38 children; a friend of his was in the Sad Sack Cafe across the street from the school. Also assigned to the clean-up detail at the school, he has told me some gruesome yet relevant details that won’t be found in any articles found about this event.
After the Allies had started to turn the tables after D-Day, he left England and was sent all over Europe in various support capacities.
“Cigarettes could be purchased pretty cheap during the war. A lot of them came in a wax wrapped carton. Hell, I always liked a little extra money, so I would heat up the package and pull the wax back. A guy could take each pack out and the shape and weight of the carton was about right for putting a couple pine boards in there. I’d then smooth the wax back and let it cool. Then at the next stop, right when the train started to move out of the station, I’d sell the carton to one of the well dressed people standing there. It was just right for me to see them open it up and discover their purchase as we pulled away…I could hear them yelling ‘You Yankee son-bitch!!!'”
For whatever reason, the phrase “Ugly American” zipped through my head as I heard this while flipping the switch to change fuel tanks on the F-150. I also learned he would then sell each pack of smokes on an individual basis. Prime are the opportunities the black market can present to a daring and enterprising twenty-year old who had never been far from home before.
“But I’ll tell you what…those folks in Europe were in bad shape. One Christmas Day, it must have been in ’44, I was in Germany and went deer hunting. I got a decent sized buck. As I was field dressing it, this Frau came up and asked for the entrails. I knew enough German from mom that I could do business with people. I refused to give her the entrails; she was not happy. I told her I had been raised poor and had never eaten the entrails, so she shouldn’t have to do the same. I told her she could have the liver only if she took a hind-leg and some other meat with it. I was going to split the deer with some buddies, but they had food and this Frau didn’t.”
I was speechless at this point. Grandpa was quiet for a brief time and you could hear the burbling of the 302 in the background. It was a cold, dreary late afternoon just after Christmas. As we were in the midst of the Mark Twain National Forest again, this story about the lady without food seemed doubly compelling.
Grandpa broke his silence as we came upon a wreck just east of the small town of Steelville. A log truck had spilled his load onto the highway and a car had hit one of the logs. We were having to wait.
“Is it me or is everyone around here driving a Dodge pickup? I saw the same thing in Rolla, too.”
I, too, had noticed the area was ripe with them. We agreed it was most likely a regional preference.
After general chit-chat while the wreck was being cleared, we continued on our way. I was lucky the few cars in front of me quickly turned; it was a forty mile jaunt to the next town and with the hills and curves, there was absolutely nowhere to pass what Grandpa called (and I now discover myself calling) the “drag-asses.” We had plenty of fuel and snacks for the trip back, which was still a shade under three hours at this point.
As we drove past the car that had hit the logs, Grandpa Albert changed the subject.
“It’s amazing how you can tear stuff up and it keeps going. When I was England working on planes, I would see those bombers come back from missions. Hitler’s boys were intent on blowing those fuckers out of the sky and they would come back looking like Swiss cheese. You’d get the boys off and then haul the plane to the scrap pile. The plane might have been brand new that morning.
“When the first jet was captured, that sure was popular on base. Everybody wanted to see it. Some general or colonel got mad and threw everyone’s ass out. Then we went to work to dismantle it and blueprint it.”
What? Did I just hear you right? You helped dismantle the first captured jet? My questions were met with a “yeah – so?” and changing the subject to his trip to Europe onboard the Queen Mary.
“That trip was awful. 3,500 people on that ship and it was storming the whole way over there. That boat was riding these hellacious waves and everybody” – except him – “was puking the whole way over there. Twelve hours you were confined to quarters, twelve hours you were allowed to roam the ship. That way you only needed half as many bunks. The bunks were four high and everybody wanted to be on the bottom. Not me. I don’t like being puked on and you could hear the puke sloshing on the floor as the ship went up and down. Out on deck, you’d see people hanging over the rails looking as green as a gourd; go into the mess hall and everyone was upchucking in their soup. Every once in a while you could hear the impeller on that ship make a whizzing sound as it was out of the water riding those waves.”
For whatever reason, I no longer desired a late afternoon snack. I shoved it back into the sack between the seats.
That day still stands out in my memory twenty years later. Grandpa Albert is still alive, and in phenomenally great health, at age 88 (now 92). He says it’s due to eating lots of bacon and eggs as well as being breast fed as an infant; who am I to doubt that?
This trip served as an outstanding lesson in perspectives. There I was at twenty years of age, grumbling about school, growing up, and poor grades. Conversely, my grandfather, at age twenty, was in Europe fighting a war and not knowing if he would make it back. He also told me of other wide ranging wartime experiences, from witnessing little boys selling the sexual services of their mothers and sisters to sitting in the main room overlooking the Alps at Hitler’s Berchtesgaden compound. These, along with some of the other instances presented, jolted me into realizing my then current circumstance was pretty damn minor in the big scheme of things.
The things I learned on this trip have long served as a point of comparison for the many life challenges with which I have since been presented. It also illustrated the benefits of removing emotion when unsavory tasks and situations present themselves. Both of these lessons have served me well.
As I get older and the cruelty of time starts to reveal itself as noisy knees and arthritic fingers, I am able to see pieces of my family in my words and deeds. For those of us over age 35, you can likely relate; for those of you under 35, just wait. It is both unnerving and soothing rolled up into one.
For instance, my grandfather has forever kept several German phrases in his speech. I will frequently have “was ist los” shoot through my mind when hearing a crying child. It is amazing how some things continue to live due to one’s early exposure.
As for continuing to live, what about the ’92 F-150 that served as the vessel for a large and significant step on my path to adulthood? This is it and Grandpa still owns it. I have neither driven nor ridden in it since at least 2000. It currently has 66,000 miles, has never seen a garage in its life, and has not been washed in at least fifteen years. Other than the front bumper, it is nearly rust-free. Our trip to Rolla that day was the furthest from home it has gone in its life.
When its fuel pump recently died and Uncle Ron gave Grandpa the diagnosis, he was skeptical as his pickup was still “too new” for that to happen. When Uncle Ron replied the pickup was 20 years old, Grandpa responded “Hell, I didn’t think I’d had it that long. I’m getting old.”
Jason,
Is he planning on selling the truck any time soon? I’d buy it in a heartbeat but I’d have to find a way to get it back to Virginia, where I’m located.
Does it still run good?
He’s still driving it, just not as often. He is toying with the idea of getting a new one, but I have first dibs on this one!
Wonderful story. And it’s such a man-style story. You have to be in a place with the average man for a fairly long period of time for him to open up. A road trip usually does the trick.
Reminds me of a trip I shared with my Grandpa in 1986, as my family was moving into the city from the only home I’d known. Grandpa drove the moving truck, and I rode shotgun.
Just four years before, he and my grandmother had nearly divorced due to his drinking, which led to an affair and very nearly getting him shot and killed.
He’d been dead sober for at least three years since. Now, I loved my Grandpa, but I was also very aware of what had happened. So, in my 11 year-old precociousness… I asked him flat out, how he could do those things.
And to his credit, he told me.
It was quite possibly the most powerful and influential conversation of my life.
BTW, Jason, I failed to include in my original post how moved I was with your story, and how it jogged a memory that I hadn’t really thought of in years. Very well done.
Thanks for sharing an incredible memory here – what a fascinating read. You are quite a writer sir.
Jason,
You are right-nothing special about a ’92 Ford F-150, except the way you wove it into a fascinating narrative. Well done. You have inspired me.
Great story Jason. I really enjoyed it. It made me think what my late grandfather and I would talk about on a hypothetical road trip. He passed away 10 years ago. As I will be 20 in a few months, I never got to have any deep adult conversations with him. I can just imagine some of the interesting things we’d talk about. I am very curious as to what kind of car he’d drive if he were still alive today. He was a religious Oldsmobile man for many decades prior to my birth.
I’ve wondered the same thing. I was 21 when my maternal grandfather died, but he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was 17 (and had been losing clarity for a couple years before the diagnosis) so I also missed any real adult conversations. And my paternal grandfather died when I was 5, so I barely remember him.
Jason, again, you’re very lucky that your grandparents are still with you and have been such an important part of your adult life! Thanks for sharing (again) these memories with us!
(Reading further, apparently I’ve reprised my comment from early last year. Oh well, the article merits two comments!)
Jim, Rob, Junqueboi, Kevin, and bbimmer7: Thank you, all. With the trip 20 years ago, in a pickup that he has now owned 20 years, at my then age of 20, it just seemed like the time to offer this up.
Wonderful story, Jason; thanks.
My father had many amazing stories from his WW2 experiences. He was inducted into the Wehrmacht as a medic, and saw action in Poland, then later deep into Russia, and then on the Western front, where he was ultimately captured (or where he rather readily surrendered, given his lack of enthusiasm for the cause 🙂 ). And then stories from his time in the US as a POW, in the Midwest…
But these were mostly just his stories; the deeper connection that your experienced was not so easy to come by. I think it’s often easier with grandparents…a less loaded relationship, usually. My grandmother was so easy to talk to, unlike my parents.
You are so profoundly correct on relationships. Of all my grandparent’s, I have found myself to be the most like Grandpa “Albert”. I really annoys my mother when I say I strive to be more like Grandpa.
Oddly enough, I’m looking to nab pictures of a Dodge Dynasty that hasn’t rusted to pieces. I took a three-week trip west in one with my paternal grandmother in 1995, going as far from here as Vancouver, western Washington, and northwest Oregon.
Grandpa had a few other stories that he has told me over time that make these pale in comparison. It does work to keep one grounded and their priorities in check.
If you aren’t in too big a hurry, somewhere deep in my picture archives are some beautiful pictures I took probably twenty years ago or so of my parent’s 1988 Dodge Dynasty. Of course they would have to be scanned, but they are quite good if I do say so myself…
Richard, I will take you up on that offer. And, no, I am not in a hurry.
That’s a beautiful story. You’ve got me thinking of all the great road-trip talks I’ve had with one family member or another over the years.
This is a great piece of writing.
I believe the most profound things are said in cars and dark rooms.
And you truly become an adult when you actually start listening to and appreciating your elders.
Reminds me of all the time I spent as a college student taking my now late grandfather to doctors appointments and family reunions and hour and a half away in his 92 Cadillac Fleetwood. Again, nothing to write home about on the car, but to this day I can’t see one of those cars and not think of him.Granny still has the car, with 70K miles on it.
What a moving (no pun intended) story. Funnily enough I’ve had some of the most interesting and revealing conversations with my kids during car trips, so that sword can cut both generational ways. Thank you so much for sharing these stories about your grandparents (and their vehicles!).
I really enjoyed this, and in many ways it mirrors my own experience. I was 20 in ’92, couldn’t deal with college, and ended up taking a series of roadtrips with my grandfather in his ’90 F150 (his first Ford since the 50s!) We rode around seeing places he hadn’t seen in years (and I’d never seen), never real far, just a lot of daytrips. Wonderful memories. Pop Pop wasn’t a veteran, when WW2 broke out he owned a small farm and had 3 or 4 kids. He did have tons of great stories, though. Thanks for reminding me of those days!
Wow, what a story!
My Grandpa and I didn’t do a whole lot together, but he sure taught me a lot.
It’s been almost a year that he has been gone, hard to believe.
Thanks for sharing this 🙂
That was a very nice piece of writing. I come here every day to learn things about vehicles I have never seen or heard of. Many times I am rewarded with not only information but some really excellent stories. I often wonder what it is about this site that attracts this kind of talent, but I am glad I found it.
Another fine piece of writing Jason!
Great story and a great truck. I consider the 1992 F-150 to the pinnacle of the light duty truck. Simple yet well built, solid, proven engines and a comfortable cab. The 300-6 was always my favourite and I had one with a five speed manual as a driver was a very nice ride indeed.
A wonderful story. You are quite fortunate to have had that kind of time with your grandfather. One of mine died before I was born, and the other lived twelve hours away and we rarely visited, maybe once every couple of years, and even then I never got much one on one time with him. I did a little more very late in his life (he died a month or so short of his 101st birthday.) I got to know a very kind and gentle man with a wonderful sense of humor and a great outlook on life.
As for the pickup, these were the last Ford pickups that I really, really liked. I hope you end up with it someday.
Agreed, JP, if I were to ever need a pick-up truck (which most probably will never happen) it would be an F-150 of this era.
What a touching story. My grandfather didn’t drive cars, he was driven in them as a government official in Taiwan. So I got to ride a lot with him as a kid and as a young adult when I worked there. Over the years, his rides included a ’58 Chevy Bel-Air or Biscayne, ’64 Chevelle, locally assembled early ’80s Nissan Cedric (called Yue-Loong over there), a ’78 Buick Electra, ’80 or ’81 Chevy Caprice Classic, and an ’88 Buick Park Avenue. In those days high ranking civil servants there got big American cars as official rides, painted black or dark blue, with heavily tinted windows for protection from the heat and sun. I think the big thing that I learned from him was to keep your work life separate from your family life – he would never “talk shop” at home, which made sense when it dealt with public policy, though he would allude once in awhile about meeting so-and-so. I also got to enjoy good food with him too – he liked all sorts of cuisine.
Jason, thank you for sharing this story with the rest of us. I think that road trip was just as good for your Grandpa as it was for you. Just a wonderful and poignant piece of writing. Thank you!
Well, this 1992 two door cab is rare style for new trucks today, so it is special now. Buyers now “have to have” 4 doors, loaded, etc, as if it’s a luxury sedan. Or, today’s version of the 1973 Olds 98 Regency.
The 92’s were the last [mild] restyle before the rounded 1997’s. Back then, critics said Ford was playing it too safe. but they still sold.
Wonderful truck. For its age, looks almost new. Wash it and polish the headlights, and you could leave out the “almost!”
But for all that, your story is even more wonderful.
Way late to reply here, but I wanted to agree that this was a really wonderful story. It’s true how it takes getting a little older yourself to appreciate how much you can learn from your elders, and I’m more than a little envious that you’ve gotten to know your grandfather so well as a person, not just as a grandparent. My paternal grandfather died when I was five, so I barely remember him; my maternal grandfather passed away in 2001 when I was 21, but he suffered from advanced Alzheimer’s so he hadn’t really been his old sharp self since the mid 90’s when I was an early teenager. We saw him almost weekly for most of my childhood into my high school years, but it was a situation where I knew him as “Grandpa” and not so much who he was as “Danny V.” So the ability to have an adult relationship with your grandparents is a not-so-common blessing, and you’ve documented it well here!
Jason ;
Another well written insightful story .
THANK YOU for sharing it .
I too love long road trips for the same reasons although I prefer base model Pickup trucks .
I never got to know my Grand Parents , I am working to change that with my two year old Grand Daughter now .
Not sure she’ll be interested in my oddball Blue Collar stories though =8-) .
-Nate
Great story Jason, and I like the truck, the F150 (and Bronco) looked its best after the ’92 restyle with the curved front end. You’re lucky to have Albert (and the rest of the family too), I don’t have any of my grandparents anymore and my Dad passed in my early 20’s. My wife’s grandfather did provide some good stories to me though over the years when he was still around.
Our own family tree looks a bit like a Charlie Brown Xmas tree with neither my wife’s sibling nor mine having kids and there not being too many branches above our level either…But your memories are great and very interesting for someone who doesn’t have as many of their own to read and absorb. Thanks,
I’m happy to be among your first “2016” responders–and glad to catch something I missed first time around.
Appropos of Nothing: When you were 20, Jason, I suppose your friends’ parents were all *about* the same age (and likewise with *their* parents), but it’s more wide-ranging today; a kindergartener’s dad might be 20–or 70.
I also suppose that grandparents hopefully wait until the grandkids take an interest in their “real world” lives and past experiences and such; I suppose another milepost is when Grandpa swears all he wants to in front of you, and doesn’t feel that he has to “watch his language.”
World War II: My dad is your grandfather’s age, and even how has a vivid new-to-me story to share occasionally. Reading about WWII has been a longtime hobby, and I try to go back-and-forth between “grand strategy” histories and “personal experience” memoirs. Even then, I know I’ll never capture what it was like to BE there–or even be on the Home Front during those years.
Thanks very much for the time you took writing this up–it made a great start to my day!
Great story Jason! I will never look at the Queen Mary the same – ever again!
These road trips are always memorable. I am glad the Ford is still around (and your Grandfather) for you to reminisce.
The last few years of dad’s life he finally opened up about some of his WW2 experiences.
He had little to no respect for his superiors, and was always eager to piss them off to the extreme. He was a paratrooper, and was in parachuted into Italy during D day.
I only saw him resort to violence a few times while growing up, one would never have any idea of what he was capable of if challenged. He was more than capable of getting the upper hand, as a small child in a family road rage incident he dis armed and beat the crap out of a man who was foolish enough to pull a gun on him after we pulled over. We never had firearms at home. He commented after that he wasn’t sure if he was really brave or really stupid.
I wish I had learned of my grandfathers WW 1’s war stories, but I was in my early teens when he passed and we never had that conversation.
Albert has had his truck almost as long as I’ve had my ’86 Jetta, although it now has over 300k miles on it. My ’04 Titan truck bought new has just under 15k miles on it, it now gets used daily but will still only get a couple of thousand miles a year on it from now on. Seems like only yesterday, not 12 years ago I brought this truck home. Barring a major accident or theft, it should be my last truck.
We had a parts runner ’94 F150, 302 auto that I drove quite a bit in the mid 2000’s. A good truck and I think one of best pickup body styles Ford ever built.
Great story.
Jason, Nice story. Elders can teach us a lot:
1. if we have the opportunity,
2. if they are willing to talk about important things,
3. if we know enough to really listen when they do talk.
You got three out of three in that Ford truck (and in other places). You are blessed.
Actually, learning from elders is how we moved out of caves and improved our tools.
Regarding seasickness on the Queen Mary, being below decks and horizontal is (I believe) the worse place to be. On deck, breathing fresh air, and seeing the horizon (no matter how much it is moving) can make things better. Maybe.
The one thing that cured my sea sickness was fear. When line squall waves towered over the 27 foot Elco and it slammed down off one wave peak into the valley of the next wave submerging the first 6 to 8 feet of the bow, then rising again to repeat the process over and over, well, I no longer felt sea sick.
Can’t say for sure which is worse, being seasick, or thinking the end was near.
Nice story about Albert.
What great oral history. I edited a book a few years ago called “Finding My Father’s. War,” about a boomer trying to research her dad’s involvement in WW2. I hope that your gramps has many more stories he’s willing to tell–they are so important for so many and can help others find out what happened to their own family members. So many surviving vets will not or cannot speak of these things, for obvious reasons.
^^^^MB, would you be OK with sharing the author’s name on what sounds to be an interesting book? There seem to be a couple with that exact title, and a few very similar. If you wouldn’t mind, it’d be sincerely appreciated!
Great story! I wish that I’d had the same kind of relationship with my grandparents.
Great story, I can easily relate to the grandfather-grandson relationship with my maternal grandfather having learned lots from him, Thankfully he’s still going strong at 81 (almost 82) but unfortunately is 1,000 miles away so I only have gotten to see him once a year for most of the past 12 years after being only an hour away when I was very young (currently 18)
Amazing life. Glad I read that. Thanks
That was wonderful to read. With memories like that, of course you’ll keep the truck.
Another great story I missed the first time around. You’re lucky to have had these people in your life.
I never met my grandfather, he was old enough to have been in WW1.
“We’ve all likely heard the adage of how to best learn about a person is to travel with them.”
I hadn’t heard, but would agree. One of my best childhood memories is traveling with my dad for a few weeks each summer for his work. I was about 10 to 14 years of age, and the company cars were all well equipped Olds 88 Royales.
The cars included ’72, ’74, ’77, and 79 models. While it is probably heresy considering the ’77 and up GM B bodies, the ’74 was probably my favorite car. A very conservative car for the era, dark metallic blue, sedan, no vinyl top, 455 engine and a load of options. It seemed kind of swank and sophisticated in a sea of contemporary yellow cars with green vinyl tops! GM probably did the best job handling the pollution controls that cars received in 1974, and that car always ran right. My dad’s boss eventually bought that car from the company, and it kept right on going into the mid 1980s.
I was younger than you on these journeys, but maybe what I learned was that my dad was a pretty patient guy to hang that close with a kid to weeks a year. Watching him do his thing to support the family was meaningful in its own way.
A nice place to step into – same dark blue interior, but his car had more toys……….
Ah…the small block Ford. The engine that won countless national and international races, to be reduced to this…that era of Ford trucks was like 1975 all over again…sigh… Great for parts, however, hence the reason I like ’em. My friend Doug has a’88 302 Bronco I have been cherry picking parts off for my V8 Ranger.
Excellent story, Jason. I’m so glad CC is rerunning these stories that I missed the first time around. And Albert is still with us? Fantastic!
I wish I had the chance to know my own grandfathers. I apparently had quite a relationship – so I’m told – with my maternal grandfather, who was apparently quite the car guy and had a fascinating career (railroad “bull” during the Great Depression), but he died when I was about 4, so all that I did with him is lost to time. My paternal grandfather, who I can recall, led his family from Manchuria escaping first the Japanese invasion, and then later the Maoists…but by the time I knew him he was no longer telling stories having suffered a stroke shortly after emigrating to the U.S. Your relationship with Albert is indeed fortunate. Thanks for sharing.
Sadly, my grandfather passed away in July 2020. While there never was a diagnosis, he had been going downhill since the prior November after my uncle died. He had had to bury his wife and two of this three kids, which is enough to wear on anybody.
He was 96. Had my uncle not died I suspect he would have made it much longer.
I do have a few little snippets about him later on in my Saturday COAL series. That was a shameless plug, there…:)
Sorry to hear about your loss Jason. And while I have never experienced it, I imagine burying your own children has to be the most difficult thing us human animals may endure. It was difficult for me to bury my mom six months before I turned 30. Now 56
Thanks for sharing another amazing story. Looking forward for the next. Fine looking truck too. I always say, I feel there’s something special about driving or riding these full size truck that I don’t feel at all in the current medium trucks… even acknowledging they’re not particularly medium sized anymore
Thanks. I had not been looking closely at the schedule and was happy to discover Paul was rerunning these.