One good thing about living in the South is that you always know at least half a dozen folks with pick-up trucks in case you need to haul something somewhere. Even better, most folks are happy to help. I can’t quite explain the popularity of the pick-up because I figure that about 90% of the time 90% of pick-up drivers aren’t hauling anything anywhere. But then again, you can’t have a proper tailgating party without a tail gate, so maybe that’s reason enough. Besides, it’s hard to outfit a Volkswagon Beetle with a gun rack…
These days, my 5-year-old nephew must be properly strapped in his car seat before we leave the driveway, and I’m all the time reminding my sister that when we were five, we rode around in the back of pick-ups on a fairly regular basis. “Yeah, well, that was then, this is now,” she’ll say like an S.E. Hinton novel.
Driving in the South, you’ll see all sorts of things hauled around in pick-ups: firewood, mattresses, watermelons, four wheelers, dogs, whatever. I once worked for a small town newspaper, and during hunting season, folks would drive up wanting me to take a picture of the dead deer in the back of their truck. They figured it was news. And sadly, the town was small enough that sometimes it was.
The weirdest thing I’ve ever seen hauled in a pick-up was a dead Holstein. I had to ask myself 1: Where are they taking a dead dairy cow? And 2: How’d they get it into the back of that pick-up? I still have no answers…
Do you drive a truck? What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever had the occasion to haul?
stuff southern people like 