Drivin' with my Arm Out the Window

I usually take the pickup, using the excuse that it's already sitting out, but the truth is I just like driving it. I like climbing into it; I like being high up while I drive; I like all the possibilities of hauling stuff -- dirt, straw bales, furniture. But mostly I like driving it because it reminds me of my dad.

I loved riding with Dad in the pickup -- bumping out across the pasture to check cows, or really bumping out across the picked corn rows to chase cows. I'd ride with him to the Matthews place to check on the hogs or into Frank's store to pick out pop.

I vividly remember the detritus of Dad's pickup -- those flat, yellow carpenter's pencils or the advertising pencils that came with a cap; a variety of booklets where Dad jotted down cow/calf number combinations or notations about the weather. (I know without a doubt where I get my penchant for notebooks and pens.) There was usually a nearly-spent spool of twine and tools behind the seat and a bull whip jammed in somewhere just in case. (i.e. the grass is always greener.) You might even find a banana peel, although he usually tossed those out the window. (When I came home from college on weekends, I learned to track him by the freshness of the banana peel in the driveway.)

The best part, though, was riding in the back of the pickup. I couldn't wait for it to be warm enough in the spring to climb back there and ride into Maloy or to the field or back into the pasture where the ponds were. It was windy and cool and too loud to hear my sisters. To a pre-teen living in rural Iowa it was the closest I'd come to flying.

It's not the most gas-efficient decision, but every chance I get, I'm going drive the dirt roads with my arm out the window, and in my head, I'll hear Dad say, "You know, the pickup drives just as well on the top half of the gas tank as it does the bottom."