July 2022 - 47
But I still like them, the texture, the feel,
the reading of them, the mystery of them
and the big-picture they provide that is as
wide as you can spread your arms instead
as small as you can spread your palm. I also
like manual transmissions, rifles made before
1964, wing-windows, fiberglass fishing poles,
wood heat and battered, paperback, formulaic
Western novels.
So that confession is out of the way. In
my shop is a 1979 step-side pickup truck
painted in what might be considered the
hideous color that the Ford Motor Company
called light jade. But since we established my
tastes run to strange proclivities and jade is
the state gem of Wyoming and my all-time
favorite saddle mare was named Jade, I'm
going to choose to like the color - maybe
even love it. My dad drove this new, fourwheel-drive
pickup off the lot on July 4,
1979, and I drove it home in 2021 after
he died. It needs carburetor work - I like
carburetors, probably not surprisingly - but
later this summer my son and I will load it
with camping gear, fishing poles and rods,
lures, worms, flies, a filet knife, a well-seasoned
cast iron skillet, a cooler of beer for me
and juice for him and we will head out into
our public land, a map unfurled on the seat
between us. I will no doubt think of my dad
and a similar trip we made across the wide,
sagebrush sea of the Red Desert, beneath the
shadow of the Wind River Mountains and up
a lonely dirt road many years ago when this
very same pickup truck had 9,000 miles on
it instead of 99,000. We will eat fresh trout
grilled over a campfire, roast marshmallows
and do whatever else my son wants to do.
The road is calling and we are listening.
- Tom Reed is the author of " Blue Lines, A Fishing
Life " and several other books. He lives with his family
and several well-used manual transmission pickup
trucks on a ranch not far from a lonely dirt road going
somewhere.
- Lori Eslick is an illustrator, artist, presenter, children's
picture book illustrator, author and workshop leader.
She regularly creates illustrations for Wyoming Wildlife
magazine's Wild Country Dispatch column. More of
her work can be seen at eslickart.com.
Wyoming Wildlife | 47
http://www.eslickart.com
July 2022
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2022
July 2022 - 1
July 2022 - 2
July 2022 - 3
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