My grandfather has a similiar pickup that must have been forged from the same block of tungsten as this one. In the morning you turn on the key and go back in the house to make coffee and wait for solid steel cylinders to ready themselves to puke smoke so thick the neighbors think your place is on fire. The knocking coming from the engine when this beast first breathes fire is liken to a .50 cal machine gun tearing into an afghanistan hillside, deafening and intimidating.

I remember being 16 years old and driving this beast on the open road for the first time. Starting off in first gear and pressing on the gas i got up to about 3000 RPM and 3 mph. As i let off the gas in prepartion to push in the clutch and grab second the beast let out a series of lurches much like a bucking bull with a leather strap pulled tightly around his nuts. In it's apparent attempt to buck me out of the saddle my head bounced off the steering wheel no less than three times. With my nails buried deep into the beasts rubbery reins and the word DROF imbedded in my forhead I managed to knock the so called transmission into second without even engaging the clutch.

Like a cowboy breaking in a wild stallion I snorted and bucked my way to school grinning all the way. That was twenty two years ago. Grandpa still has the pickup and it's as reliable (and difficult) as it ever was.