Broncomatic

One of the unexpected surprises about living here in WV is that I have seen at least half dozen of a particular truck I used to own. The last one was bone stock down to the original hubcabs and seats. Not bad for a forty year old ride. Seeing those trucks has opened a floodgate of nostalgic videos. Taken me back to a younger wilder time.

Don’t know about you, but I have owned a number of cars with character. Some of my acquaintenances are smirking, thinking the driver was the character not the car, but let’s not debate that……..right now. Those cars have incredible memories associated with them of good times, bad times, and adventures that the car figured heavily into.

My particular auto was a 1972 Ford Bronco. You might or might not remember them. The original Broncos, not the huge bulbous box that followed, and not the gutless litlle Bronco II with a asmathic hamster engine. No, the steel box, primitive suspension, drum brake, four wheel drive, V8, mud slinging, bad ass backwoods auto. In my mind it WAS the SUV.  It would get filthy on the inside from mud, peanut shells, and deer (hmmmmmmm) leftovers. Solution, park it sideways on a hill and get out the house.

It was the first car that I bought on my own. It was worn out when I bought it. I loved it. It took me to all the deer hunting and turkey hunting locations that most couldn’t reach because of muddy and treacherous roads. It would go through anything, almost. The problem, however, with a bad azz mud machine, is that on the rare occasion that you do get it stuck, it is stuck. No simple matter of throwing a few sticks under the tires and backing up. Nope, maybe, just maybe you can winch it back out with a come along. Maybe, you can dig it out with the shovel. Always you are standing waist deep in mud the instant you step out of the truck.

There was the time, that I was alone and stuck it so deep, that shovels and come alongs were no help. I walked out five miles to the nearest house to get help. That house was still pretty far out in the woods, and imagine the warm reception that a mud slathered stranger received, first by the gaggle of mixed breed dogs, and second by the lady of the house, all dressed in her house rub complete with cig dangling from her lip as she skeptically questioned me. Anyway, I finally found someone with a rig big enough to pull me out and lived to tell about it.

Oh yeah, there’s the time the whole engine caught on fire due to a leaky fuel line. Some quick action with red dirt saved the day, but not before the engine wiring was toast. Yes, we were five miles from civilization, so a little splicing work with a pocket knife, using a ripped t shirt to insulate the wires, and we finally drove out. Come to think of it. The fire and the big stuck were literally about two hundred yards from each other on the same road. Talk about a spot with bad karma.

And then there was the time it snowed and I drove my wife to work. I was grooving on playing in the snow with the truck and pulling folks out of ditches. I was feeling pretty uppity about the old trucks prowess in the slick stuff when I happened upon yet another car in the ditch. Ok, I have the drill down by now. Leave truck in road, hook snatch strap to the car in ditch, and go. Well in this case the car was headed up a steep hill, so I told the driver that I wouldn’t stop until we reached the top. Damn, we are slipping and sliding, and I am cursing this wimpy little beast. Already, I am thinking about the next power upgrade to an already tweaked V8, and this must also be justification for some even bigger tires. We finally made it to the top, and I am a little embarrassed by the slipping and sliding. The driver jumps out thanking me for rescuing his sorry butt, and apologizing at the same time. Seems he wasn’t ready, and didn’t get the car out of park before we started. The old Bronco dragged him up the hill.

The best part of this nostalgia, I have saved for last. There had to have been at least a hundred hunting trips in that old Bronco. Early mornings with bad coffee and greasy eggs at the awful Waffle, bull shit stories with my Dad and my uncle Ralph, trips with no deer seen, trips with the back full of fresh venison, sweat your butt off  mosquito infested trips, freeze your butt off hunting trips. Those are some of the best memories of my life. I had no money, but I had the two men who raised me. They were doing what they “did” on those trips to teach me how to be a southern man. Not so much by words as in action.

Seeing all those old Broncos has stirred some powerful memories in me. I can only hope that I have put similar ones in my boys’ treasure chests that they can pull out later in life.