BROWNIE

Dad and I jointly drove JRM's truck til the odometer turned over multiple times (my feeble brain thinks it was near to 300,000 miles?)

It finally became so "smooth mouth" (Dad's word for worn out) that it would go no mo'.

Dad got to shopping the world wide web vehicle market (Wright City back roads) and found a 1968 pickup with a decent engine that would bolt to the 1964 jewel without any modification. The only thing wrong with the '68 was that it had been first rolled over in a wreck, and then later hit by a train in a wreck.

I supplied the cash and Dad supplied the work/time to put the '68 engine into the '64 pickup and all was well for JRM's prize wheels.

Dad being Dad, there was nuthin' for him to do but put the "smooth mouth" 1964 engine into the old brown 1968 pile of rusty, warped, twisted, and distorted carnage. Again, Dad being Dad, he had a nickname for everything and the 1968 was dubbed, "Brownie".

Dad used an acetylene torch to cut off the fenders and doors and he finished knocking all the glass out of it. Naturally, the muffler had to go or else it would not run loud enough (as if Hattie needed more to gripe about?). He left the bed on Brownie for practical uses, although it was kinda bent in a "U" shape (trains have a way of doing that?). Add four slick tires, hook up the horn, add a radio to the equation and dad had created a WC masterpiece (eyesore?).

Dad and I had a blast with Brownie while driving at break neck speed across the pastures, plowing into the creeks, and just generally treating it like it was an army tank and we were back-road warriors.

My favorite memory of Brownie is one day when Dad and I were stopped on the road between his house and Grandmother's looking at something or the other beside the road. An oncoming car stopped and the driver was obviously extremely excited/distraught? With stuttering and fear he sincerely asked, "Is anybody hurt?" Dad and I looked at each other and then at the gentleman and intelligently replied, "Whut?". He said, more urgently now, "Was anybody hurt when you had this wreck?"

Dad and I nearly fell out of the truck laughing as the good Samaritan drove away doubtless thinking we were nuts, or delirious from the "crash"?

The poor soul will never know that we were just doing what comes natural to the native sons of Wright City.