The 1 Ton

Brad has 3 older vehicles that don't run.  Two live at our house and the third one I think I have seen once.  It lives in a shed on a friend's farm, it is a International fire truck.  There is a blue International Scout that Brad restored in high school (his mom let him skip school to work on it his senior year!) that needs some restoring again. There is also a Chevy Crew Cab 1 Ton that can run on propane or gas.  The 1 ton hasn't run for a long time and to be honest I don't even know why it doesn't run.  There was some rumor about a battery and maybe the transmission or maybe I should pay closer attention.

He wasn't having any fun!

Brad had the 1 Ton in college and they used to have a grill hooked up to the propane tank in the bed of the truck.  They would grill out, take the truck to parties, bars, and have a grand old time in the truck.  From the stories I have heard sometimes they had to get random people to drive them back to their fraternity in the truck.  Brad was a senior at the University of Illinois when I was a freshman.  We didn't know each other then, but my dorm was across from Nabor House (his fraternity) and I remember seeing the 1 Ton driving around campus.  Brad has a lot of memories in the truck and therefore has some big attachment to it, so do some of his pledge brothers.  In the past I have mentioned that if we got rid of it he could use all the money toward fixing up the Scout.  Apparently that wasn't enticing enough.

They were almost all looking at the same time.

Over the past 6-7 years I have gone in phases where I either bug Brad about getting rid of the 1 Ton or I just ignore it completely and hope it just disappears someday all on its own.  No such luck so far!  About 6 months ago Vince started believing that daddy had two monster trucks a blue one and a white one.  I brought up getting rid of the 1 Ton and Brad quickly said to Vince "Mommy wants to get rid of the white monster truck."  Vince started crying and spent the next few days being mad at me and yelling at me for getting rid of daddy's monster truck. 

This may have been when Brad was explaining to Vince to not let Joel touch anything...good luck!

I know it sounds mean that I want Brad's truck gone, but I have been in the mood to clean things out and get everything organized around here.  I was only wanting 1 out of the 3 trucks gone so I figured that was pretty nice.  Anyway, its not that I don't have good memories of that truck.  After all Brad picked me up on our first official date and took me to the drive in movie in that truck.  Once we got there he grilled a delicious meal complete with corn on the cob and homemade applesauce (compliments of his sister in law Michelle).  Once the truck died on the side of the interstate (on an off ramp I believe) and I pulled it home for Brad with the truck I had at the time that was significantly smaller.  There were even 1 or 2 winters where our propane tanks were out and Brad hooked the truck up to the house to run the heat (from the truck's propane tank) so that we could get by until our propane tank was filled later in the day (hillbilly or resourceful?).  Plus there were many nights while we were dating and newly married where we would grill out in the truck with the camping grill (the only one we had at the time), turn on the radio and dance outside until our food was done.  If the weather wasn't nice we would just park the truck in the shed.

One of many attempts to get a good picture.  The boys had no interested in looking at the camera at the same time.

Last week sometime I mentioned to Brad that we really needed to get the Scout off the jacks in the dairy barn because it was too dangerous and that it would be great to get the white truck out of the shed so we had more room for the motorhome.  I wasn't even trying to suggest getting rid of them and Brad jumped on the idea.  So getting the truck out of the shed became the new project.

Moving the 1 Ton out of the shed

Brad asked Vince to help him and Vince was happy to help.  Brad hooked a tow strap up to the white 1 Ton, got in our white truck (that runs) and needed someone to steer the 1 Ton.  That was Vince's job with Joel in the passenger seat "helping."  Vince was doing pretty good for awhile but it was too hard for him to steer the wheel, so I jumped in and helped.  The rest of the night and the next night or so were spent with the kids playing in the truck while Brad worked on it.  When the kids got bored they would run and jump in the puddles and play in the mud.  It was a win win for everyone because the 1 Ton is now parked right by the giant muddle puddle and pile of dirt!

Brad giving Vince instructions on how to steer

The 1 Ton hasn't moved from its new location in the barnyard, but we have a lot more room in our shed.  I don't know what the next step is in the process of finding it a new home, but I can only hope that getting it out of the shed was the first step.  Anyone interested?  All I can say is that the price will be a lot lower if you deal with me instead of Brad.  Shoot...he reads this regularly....I may be in trouble.  My horse may suddenly have a low price tag too :)