A good old memory
My grandfather bought a 1971 Ford F150 for $1,200 in 1995. I remember it like it was yesterday. He loved that old truck. He spent more money fixing it than the truck was actually worth. The Ford was a kind of silver/grey color with two black stripes down the middle. It had a big dent above the left rear wheel that occurred when a drunk driver side swiped it while stopped at a red light. The truck’s bed was mostly full of my granddad’s golf equipment and covered by a black plastic truck bed cover. The golf gear was not arranged or organized in any way, only he could find what he was looking for any given time. There were always empty golf ball boxes piled up on the bed of the truck. Underneath the boxes, one could find the golfing equipment.
Once I got inside of the cabin, I entered a whole different world. The door on the driver side wouldn’t open at times and I would have to go in through the passenger side door. Most of the time the passenger side was full of newspaper clippings, empty bottles, cans, 2 pairs of golf shoes and a pair of sandals. Inside the cabin, it usually smelled like dirt and grass. My grandfather played golf for a living, not in the PGA or anything like that, but he always managed to make enough money to support his family.
Once I finally got past the odor. I proceeded to insert the key and hoped it would start. Sometimes it did nothing, but my Grandfather told me that this could happen and he said I had to keep trying until I could get it to start. So I continued to crank the engine a more times until the engine came to life. But, I wasn’t very optimistic, because within a few moments it would sputter, rev down and, if I didn’t step on the accelerator quickly a couple of times, died. I would then have to give it another try and then another... It usually took more than three attempts to get the truck running.
The most