The Saga of Old Red

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The Saga of Old Red
By Hal Haralson

[Hal Haralson practices law in Austin and contributes frequently to Christian Ethics Today.]

It`s hard for me to let go. Old age causes me to mellow and cherish the experiences shared across the years.

In 1970 my father died. I was thirty-five years old and a second-year student in law school at the University of Texas.

I inherited his old Pontiac which was stolen from our house and wrapped around a tree in Austin. After months of fierce negotiations, I settled with the insurance company for $600.00.

With this and another $600.00, I purchased a 1967 Ford Pickup. It was bright red, six cylinders and no air conditioner.

Now, twenty-nine years later, "Old Red" is beat up and scarred with faded paint and one black fender.

Old Red is like one of the family. Jill, Brad, and David learned to drive in her. Operating the clutch and manual gearshift taught coordination that would come in handy in many ways in the future.

The gearshift was originally on the steering column. Now it`s on the floor.

It happened about twenty years ago on the deer lease at Junction. I hit a big rock and the pickup wouldn`t come out of low gear.

I drove 20 miles into Junction at 5 mph and the guy at the filling station showed me how to raise the hood and manipulate the elbows of the gearshift and put it in the gear I wanted.

I placed the elbows so I was in high gear (there are only three forward gears) and drove the 100 miles into Austin.

This continued for nearly a year. If I wanted to change gears, I lifted the hood, manipulated the elbows, and put it in reverse, or another forward gear.

I found this had an advantage. When people called and wanted to borrow my pickup, I told them they were welcome to use it…then explained the method of shifting gears.

"I think I`ll look somewhere else," was the usual reply.

I suppose I would still be lifting the hood and manipulating gears but for the man who issues inspection stickers. We didn`t pass. That`s how the gear shift got to be on the floor board.

Old Red`s horn is a small black button on the dash. The one on the steering wheel doesn`t work.

One cold winter night, about 3:00 a.m., Old Red`s horn began to honk. I couldn`t get it to stop, so I got a hammer and beat on it until it quit.

The inspection guy at the filling station came back later that year, "You are going to have to have a new horn. That one won`t work. It looks like someone`s been beating on it."

I rather sheepishly told him the story and he installed a new horn.

The front bumper is bent forward about 15 degrees on the passenger side. David was learning to drive and got a tree between the bumper and the fender.

After much maneuvering, he got Old Red separated from the tree but not without significant alteration of the bumper.

The head light on the driver`s side has no chrome cover.

Brad, David and I were sleeping in our tent on our deer lease at Johnson City. We had covered the sacks of deer corn in the back of Old Red and were sound asleep in our bed rolls.

Our slumber was interrupted by the shrill whinny of a horse. The rancher`s horses had discovered the corn.

They kept fighting each other over the corn and making all kinds of noise.

Brad says, "I heard the zipper of the tent. Then I heard Old Red start and there were horses whinnies, the sound of glass breaking and hoofs hitting metal."

"Pops zipped the tent flap back up and got into his bedroll and went back to sleep."

The next morning we saw what had happened. One of the horses had kicked out Old Red`s head light while fleeing the charging pickup.

The same year I got Old Red, I had traded a used deep freezer for a used john boat.

The boys and I fished Onion Creek, near Wimberley, many times during those law school years. We would load the john boat into the bed of Old Red and we were off.

Judy and I made many trips to Laity Lodge this way. I caught my share of bass (two five-pounders) in the Frio River under the great hall.

I parked Old Red down by the river so I wouldn`t embarrass the participants at the conferences.

One of Brad`s buddies from Laity Lodge youth camp told him he was returning to Austin from camp and came up on an old man driving an old pickup with a john boat in the bed of the pickup.

Charlie Duke said, "I pulled up along side the pickup and this old man was reading a book while driving down the highway. Then I recognized him. It was your father."

I could buy a new pickup but it wouldn`t be the same. There is something about the pride of survival.

Old Red has paid her dues. I figure in pickup years, we are about the same age-mid sixties.

I think we both have some good years left in us. You don`t discard something just because it`s old.