I love this story…will have to say in this family I am the BMW girl and my husband is the Toyota truck four-wheeling guy! Crazy too but great match! Have many more fun miles drivin’ n smilin’….

I love this story!!! I laughed all the way through, you are brave, my little white GM sunfire with dual exhaust larger engine and a sunroof would be so upset if I traded her in. (her name is Finn) but I’m looking at trucks all the time around the farm and one day, I’ll just HAVE to have one to haul things too! Good for you for finding your Elvis 🙂 Nancy.

Love this story!!!!! I am dreaming of my dream truck right now, but I will have it soon, soon, soon! I do Haul Things too in my 4 Runner now, so I know I will get good use out of my truck when I find it:) Thanks for sharing!

This is just great. Thanks for the laughs. Love Elvis. I am going to have to look for a pic of my old truck, a 1956 Chevy, color…Primer Grey/Bondo….I loved him and we worked on him for a while, almost wrecked him a few times, dang old brakes. But we had fun with him, then of course, life happens when your kids are little and we needed cash. Bye Bye, Dream Truck. He became the dream of someone else but I still think of him often:)…….Raynita

I drive my Dad’s old truck all the time. It is a 1986 tan Maxda B2000. He passed away in 2001 and I love the connection with him. People stop by the house all the time & want to buy it.

July 4, 2007, was unusually wet. It had been raining since June 1st and had not stopped. And, no, I do not live in Oregon. I live in Texas.

I was living with my parents at the time, I didn’t drive (I was 27, but had basically a big girl’s permit. That is a long story I won’t get into). Daddy got up that morning and walked into the dining room, and said "I was thinking we could go to Henna and see if they have your truck there.". It confounded me, since I’d had the exact same thought, but didn’t tell anyone. What else was there to do? I was about to get my license, I had no vehicle, and it was raining. Still. All… day… long.

So, Momma and Daddy and I lazed around for a while, then piled into Momma’s Tahoe to go see the folks at the Chevrolet dealership and see about getting me a Trailblazer. Now, everyone argues with me up and down that Tahoes and Trailblazers are SUVs. I grew up riding in a big, steel bodied Chevy K5 Blazer and it was a TRUCK. SUV is a modern word that is strictly forbidden in my vocabulary.

I wanted a Trailblazer after sitting in my best friend’s truck. It wasn’t as big as my mother’s Tahoe, but still big enough. I could haul stuff (and as Rebekah says, what kind of stuff, I didn’t know) and I wasn’t sitting in Austin traffic, looking at the undercarriage of the Freightliner next to me. I felt safe.

So, they found one on the lot that was a lease vehicle, less than a year old with 1800 miles. I immediately hated it. The body style had changed. The driver’s side dash looked like a cockpit. I didn’t even want to drive it! I was afraid of it! So, I made Daddy do the test drive. He tried to convince me that it was okay, but he finally realized, I am his daughter, and I don’t need all the fancy buttons. The buttons cost 2000 extra dollars I couldn’t afford, anyway.

So, the salesman drove around the lot and finally found one that had JUST been taken off the truck and wasn’t even in inventory. He swung around front like a bat out of Hell…. in a GREEN Trailblazer.

"It’s… green," said Daddy with a sour expression. He had a thing about green vehicles… a racecar driver had been killed in one in the 1970s, and apparently green was unlucky. I had heard this my ENTIRE life, and my very first vehicle was going to be green.

"I don’t care, I like it, let’s go!" and headed for the passenger side. Well, that irked Daddy who pulled over at one point and MADE me drive it. I just knew I was going to destroy this truck.

Then… I hit the accelorator. VROOM!!!

"What just happened??" I exclaimed.

"It’s just because it’s an inline 6. This engine has a lot of torque, so it’s going to get away from you if you’re not careful."

He saw the smile on my face and the gleam in my eye.

"I don’t want to catch you racing around in this thing," he made clear, knowing I wasn’t going to listen. He started laughing when I said "Okay", because he knew I didn’t mean it.

A couple of hours later, we signed the paperwork and the dealership told me they had to inspect and detail it before I could take it home, so the next day, we went back and picked up Fred. I drove to and from work (with someone in the vehicle) until a month later, and I got my license. I even parallell parked for the very first time in that truck, and I aced it.

Sadly, a couple of weeks after that, my father had a heart attack. For a week and a half, I drove Fred alone, taking care of house hold things while he lay in ICU, holding on while we planned for the inevitable. He passed away two months to the day after we bought that truck.

I was only working part time, it was my first big installment loan, and Daddy had the foresight as my cosigner to buy Credit Life insurance. Two and a half months after we signed our loan docs, Fred was paid in full.

I still drive Fred, and some times I go too fast. My fiance’s family marveled that I made it from Lubbock to Oklahoma as fast as I did… little did they know, I was going 90 most of the way through the panhandle. He’s taken me through mountains, plains, mud, checkpoints at Ft Hood (I got lost SEVERAL times) and even a haboob that made national news in Lubbock.

Even if I get a newer vehicle some day, Fred stays with me. I was the one making my payments, but with the Credit Life paying off the note when my father died, I consider Fred to be the last thing my father bought for me – I treasure him.

And it’s a fun little secret between us Trailblazers… that Straight 6 gets us ALL in a little trouble from time to time!

My first vehicle was an 87 F-150. I named him Wild Willy. He was green and yellow, but soon changed to primer gray. He was missing his tailgate, but I made up for it by putting a got milk sticker on the back. I got a lot of strange looks pulling into the school parking lot each morning. I went to the "rich kid" school in the county. I was the only farm kid in my graduating class, and the ONLY girl who drove a truck. There were 4 other fancy, new trucks at school, all driven by boys. I never got grief for my truck (besides the looks), I got a reputation for being tough despite being small. I still have Willy, he’s blue now to match the Harvestore silos, but he sits around these days. I like to think I’m still tough in my SUV with two little girls in the back now. Thanks for the story!

Never seen a betetr post!