My love of trucks has been a life long affair for me. Now I am the epitome of urban soccer mom. I have spent the last 15 years driving your typical mommy compact SUV like so many other mothers with kids of a certain age. But under my soccer mom facade, lurks a real born and bred truck girl. The daughter of a trucker, I was the ultimate tomboy as a kid and eschewed dolls to play with Tonka Trucks and differential fluid courses through my veins.
I fell in love with real trucks back in my tomboy days in the 1970’s. My very first true truck love was a 1976 silver Dodge Ramcharger. She was a black and silver beauty that was full of brawn. She was supped up with all the gadgets of the day. She had 8 track player that we spent hours listening through as we drove off road through the bush listening to the sound track from Grease. She was fitted with a big black roll bar that as I scrambled into the back, I never failed to smack my head on. She even had an after market CB radio that my trucker father used to find out road conditions from other truckers on the road on our many road trips.
I will never forget my very first off road trip in that Dodge. My mother was driving along a very rough country road and said “lets take a short cut”. We bumped off the road into an over grown of patch bush. Tree limbs twisted and snapped as we clamored our way through the bush while we kids bounced up and down in the back beaming with the joy as we explored uncharted ground. When we made it out to another road, we felt like we had conquered the deepest darkest Amazon jungle.
I don’t remember my last trip in the Dodge. I just know it was replaced first by a small import car and then a minivan as the family grew and times changed. I never did get to drive the Dodge, she was gone long before I got my license but I know she would have been just a joy to drive. I often drive my little silver SUV and dream that she is the doge. I wish my kids could feel the sheer thrill of an off road trip like that doge could hand out but alas, the urban jungle machine just can’t take that kind of a beating.