Real Texans drive ‘manly’ trucks

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me, a new pickup-truck

Apologies to Texas born rock and roller Janis Joplin.

Every Real Texas resident has fond memories about their trucks.  I know men and women who can tell you everything about their first pickup.  I’ve seen trucks with about a million miles on them that look brand new.  I’ve also seen nearly brand new trucks with the paint scratched off from running too close to mesquite trees on dirt roads.  It’s just how you treat ‘em as to what you end up with.  Kinda like real life stuff huh?

You can see right off this post is about Real Texas pickups.  Manly trucks!
They go by different names out here.  Pickup Trucks. Or just trucks, or maybe just pickups.  To lots of us out here, a truck is a big rig.  A semi, an 18 wheeler.  But a lot of us secretly want ours to be bigger, more manly, so we call it a truck.

That’s some kind of envy for sure isn’t it?

We don’t call a small SUV a truck here in Real Texas like an acquaintance of mine once did.  He said something about getting in his truck and I looked all over the place for it.  Then he opened the door and got in a Ford Explorer. To me, And I’ve lived in the Paradise of Texas nearly all my life, that ain’t and/or isn’t a truck.  But I digress with a small rant.

So, your favorite truck might not be a Ford.  It may be a Chevy, or a Dodge, or my favorite, a Chevy Avalanche.  I’ve driven lots of pickups.  I hate to admit it, but the first one I ever bought myself and drove was a Nissan.  But what was it called before it was called Nissan…..oh yeah, a Datsun.

I drove a lot for my 2nd job and the Datsun did pretty good on gas.  After all, it was probably .55 cents a gallon.  Too damn expensive at that. And you can have a philosophical discussion over a case of Lone Star as to whether or not a Tundra is a Real Texas Truck.  They are made in San Antonio.  Does that make them Texan?  Somebody let me know….but only after complete philosophical discussion as mentioned.  No fights either.

My friends all drove pickups in high school and I had an old beat up car.  One friend, Enoch Estes had a 1956 or so Ford.  It could go around the circle block at the swimming pool at almost full blast and not turn over.  Oh, it would tip over and go on two wheels now and then, but we never actually turned it over. It did sort of turn around and buck a time or two, hopped up and down once or twice, but never bucked us out onto the pavement.

Me and my best friend Phil Farr did turn over his 1954 Chevy pickup on the way to school one morning.  Now before you folks get the wrong idea, we didn’t go to high school in the 1950′s.  This was 1965 when we flipped the pickup two and a half times on a dirt road early one morning.  I was asleep on the 20+ mile drive into town on a dirt road, and Pete Farr probably went to sleep at the wheel that morning. We must have had a hard weekend.

He came up to a turn in the road, woke up, hit the brakes, and turned to the left.  When you do those things I list in that particular sequence, and you do not have power steering, the wheel will snap to the left very quickly and over you go.  In this case, it was two and a half times.  We had to crawl up and out of the passenger side which was pointed skyward.  During the rollover, I broke both side windows out with my back.  We were not hurt at all.  The cab was filled with powdery dust and we looked like we had been dusted with flour. Many others through the years were not so lucky, and I realized that more and more during my newspaper career as I went out to wreck after wreck where there were serious injuries and kids killed.  It’s was just part of growing up in Real Texas.  The lucky ones lived through it.

But back to favorite rides.
Phil Farr eventually got a F-150.  Heck, it might have been a F-100 that far back.  It was brand new and man he was proud of that thing.  He was not so proud when I drove his new pickup up, up, and over onto the trunk/luggage rack of an MG, or some little car on the way back from the exotic location of Cuidad Acuna, Mexico.  It was in a long line of cars headed back across the border to the USA when I accomplished that feat, which I thought was pretty cool at the time.  It was taking forever to get back across the border and I wasn’t really paying attention to some little car in front of us.  Didn’t really hurt the new Ford, but the boys in the MG were not all that amused.  I’m sure there were plenty of other fights along the way back into the USA, that’s just one I remember.  The Ford did as good a Jeep imitation as any truck I have ever seen before or since. The front wheels hit the back end of that little car just right, and up we went.  When we backed off, there were a couple of real surprised looking frat boys staring back at us.

Farr went on to drive that truck into an old caliche pit and went missing for several hours before we located him after his folks became alarmed that he did not make it home. He was still unconscious, but he came around after a while.  His broken nose is still not all that pretty.

There were plenty of other good trucks in my time.  I’ve driven a Ford single cab, Ford extended cab, Chevy extended cab C-2500, a Chevy half-ton, and probably others, but the one I drive now is my favorite.  It’s a 2003 Chevy Avalanche with almost every available option.  When a friend of mine gets in the truck with me, his big butt turns on the seat heater somehow.  After a while he will say something about his butt getting really hot.  I have to tell him four or five times to hit the buttons that turn off the seat heater.  Too fancy a truck for him.

It’s not a work truck and I would have to admit it is not nearly as manly a truck as the truck I have pictured in this post.  I would classify that truck as a Real Texas, “Manly” truck.
I wanted to get my pickup ‘outfitted’ like the one in the picture.  My little wife was strongly opposed.  She mentioned something about her having to ride with me every now and then…and embarrasing, and other words.

I drove up beside the truck that is pictured and I could hear the music blaring.  A couple of song titles I recognized were:

Hog Slop Boogie – Dwayne Midnight & the Fatties
Ten Gallon Toupee – Tim McGruff
The Tex-Mex Two-Step” – Big John & Chi-Chi
She Thinks My 12HP John Deere Riding Mower is Sexy – Lenny Wifebeater & the Chest-Waxers
No Thanky Yankeee – Dr. Cornpone & The Washtubbers
I Ain’t Know Stereotype – Mary Jo Jean Johns
Camel Toe Conga – Shania Maybelle
Oklahomo Nights – Linedancing Larry & the Nuthuggers
Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be ConAgra Sales Reps” – Stripmall Cowboys
Kiss My NASSCAR – Jeb McKentucky
Your Crick Is My Holler – Shania Steinberg
She Broke My Cowboy Heart, So I Broke Her Cowgirl Face” – Tex Testosterone & the Linebackers
-See the complete list of 50 lowest country song titles at Chickenhead.com  Sick.  Yes, I know.

But, my truck memories are great, even the time as high school teenagers, we were out hunting and I looked around and observed the following:  We had, in Pete Farr’s single cab pickup, nine guns, a cooler full of beer, three boys, a dead deer in the bed of the truck and six turkeys.  Don’t know how we lived through that day either.  Have no right to actually be here remembering it and writing this down.

Here’s a couple more for ya to put on your Ipod connection in your truck.  Get with it, you gotta keep up with technology:
“Ain’t Drunk, Just Pukin’” – Cooter
“Dolly Parton’s Greatest Tits”
“Wrangler Wedgie Shuffle” – Kid Skag & the Crackers
“Drunk Tank Lovin’” – The Double-Wide Dandys- -sing this one to the tune of Easy Lovin’
“Painted Up & Puttin’ Out” – Wynonna Widebottom

David Werst will see YOU out in Real Texas.

Tagged as: Real Texas, Texas Humor, Texas Lifestyle, texas trucks