Opinion

As much as technology has done for our society, there are few things that it has taken away, like privacy, and the ability to work on a vehicle. Gone are the days of driving through a neighborhood and seeing fathers and sons or daughters, working under the hood of the family car or truck. These days you practically have to have a degree from MIT to figure out how to change a spark plug. I’ve always loved old cars and trucks. I get that from my dad. Over the years, he has had an old Chevy truck, a Packard, a ’55 Chevy, and a ’64 Mustang convertible. Currently, he has a 1946 Ford truck he tinkers on. For the past couple of years, I’ve been wanting an old truck. There’s something about the heavy clang of the door slamming shut, and the sound of the engine. Recently my husband and I purchased a 1965 Chevy truck to work on a little at a time. It runs, but it needs a lot of work. My dad is helping on the project. Right now, the work involves a new wiring harness and connecting many different wires. The way the previous owner has everything connected, he must have had stock in electrical tape. You can tell a lot about a person by the decisions they made when you raise the hood of a truck. The shortcuts, fixes, and rigging of wires and connections provide insight into the previous owner’s thought processes. It can either tell a story of meticulous work or haphazard effort.

Well, I’ve done it...