While I'm trying to get my 66 together so I can get started on my 65, I figured I'd post how I originally acquired this truck.
I think my story may be interesting to some.
More and more memories are now coming back to me since I got my 65 back.
I'm going to go back a ways in time because I think it has a huge bearing on how I appreciate getting my 65 back all the more.
I was born in 1965.
I was raised in a little farming town - Woodland, Ca.
Back in the early 70's the town had a population of around 40,000.
If you want to get a feel of what my town, and countryside of Yolo county was like, watch the movie American Graffiti - which was filmed in Modesto - not too far from Woodland.
We lived out in the country on 5 acres with 2-3 out buildings. We had Chickens, Pigs, Horses, geese, ducks, dogs, cats, and a Milk Cow. My responsibilities were outside, my sister's were in. In the spring I had to plow and disc the field so to plant oat hay.
I had to feed all the animals, and milk the cow, and clean the pens. All of this and I'm only around 11 or 12. I'm sure I was like any other kid and put off my chores and probably had to be gotten after to do them right.
Anyway... all this does have a lot to do with my getting my 65 later.
One day, riding the bus home from school, around 5th or 6th grade, a friend was telling me he couldn't wait until the weekend when he got his allowance and planned on buying something that coming Saturday with it.
I asked him what was an allowance. He said his parents gave him $5 dollars a week for his allowance. I still didn't quite understand what an 'allowance' was, so I asked him what he did to earn the $5. He said nothing, it was his allowance.
I never got paid for doing my chores, but if I wanted a little money for the fair or some other event, my parents would usually give me a few bucks. And if I wanted to buy something like a model airplane or model truck, my dad would give me an extra job; like stacking fence posts, or some other job outside of my regular chores.
Funny, I never felt lacking that I wasn't getting an 'allowance' like my friend.
This all leads up to my dad buying me this 65 truck.
Early in eighth grade, my parents got a divorce. My parents never fought around others. My sister and I never saw them fight, and our whole family said the divorce came as a shock. I went with my mom. My sister with dad.
I would spend summers with dad. Eventually, my dad moved to Oregon. I think early 80's.
The summer after 11th grade, I went again to stay with my dad. He had a landscape businesses and every morning I was expected to get up and go to work with him. I didn't even think I was supposed to get paid. I just figured that was one's share of being part of the household.
My not getting an allowance when I was younger is why I didn't expect to get paid later when I went to work with dad doing landscaping. I just saw it as what was expected of me for having a roof over my head.
So I worked all summer with my dad.
As it was getting closer to school starting, my dad asked me if I was going to go back down to California, or stay with him for my senior year. I told him I wanted to go back to Calif. He then asked me to sit down. He had a folder that he opened and said he had been figuring some numbers. He said he took the hours I worked times what he figured I was worth, and then subtracted 'Room & Board' and said he figured I had $1200 coming. I was thinking; Wow!
But he said he wasn't going to give me the money, but rather, we would go look for a truck for me.
Pretty neat!
For some reason, I wanted a 67-72 chevy, and he wanted me to get a f*rd somewhere between 54 –1960. I wanted a chevy.
After looking at many, many pickups 67-72 chevys, I was starting to wonder if we'd find something before I had to go back to Ca.
Then one evening dad saw something in the 'Nickle-Ads' We called the guy and went to see it that same eve.
I loved it at first sight. He wanted $1100, and we didn't offer him less.
I feel really privileged that my parents didn't give me anything for nothing.
I know in generations past, children were expected to share the household load.
But I think most parents from the 60's on wanted their children to have the 'good things' that they, when they were kids, didn't have.
Today, we have friends that can't even get their kids to mow the lawn unless they pay them. They aren't doing their kids any good.