A man and his truck

I married a typical boy. I'm learning now that I didn't grow up with "typical boys". (No offense my bruthas...) They didn't live for playing sports and competing. They didn't have sports idols (at least not that I was aware of). They didn't drool over a good piece of meat or grunt or any of that stuff. In my high school mind boys like that were kind of rude. And mean. And they were jerks. Funny how I knew what somebody was like just by looking at them. Aren't high school stereo-types fun?!

I hung out with a different class of boy. The intellectual/nerdy/musical/funny boys. Give me a boy who could understand subtle sarcastic humor and appreciate some good music over a boy who spent his time sweating in a gym or on a court any day. (No offense to the boys I hung out with growing up. I'm sure you were good at sports....and stuff.)

But then I met Zack. He's a unique combination of both types. He taught me that you CAN be on the football team or basketball team and not be a jerk. (But what about my good old-fashioned high school stereo-types?!) He's super smart in a good nerd sort of way, AND he appreciates a good subtle, sarcastic comment any day.

But he's also a typical boy. He likes meat. He likes to play sports. Give him a ball and his face lights up. He likes to watch sports. He even reads about sports in the paper. Honestly, when they start talking about sports on the news my brain tells me that the news is over and I change the channel. It didn't even occur to me that people like to watch that stuff. But Zack does. He loves it. He knows all sorts of tid-bits about any sport. He knows names and statistics. He also knows how to play most sports.

He also knows about cars. He can change oil, brake pads, flush fluids and actually knows how the engine works. What a guy.

He likes to work out (when he has the time). He loves his power tools.

And he likes his truck.

I used to think that trucks were kind of like big toys for boys. They used a lot of gas, they cost a lot of money, they aren't practical to take a family around in, and guys always bought them bigger than they needed to be. I could see that they served a purpose, but only if you lived on a farm or needed them to haul stuff around alot.

I never understood how much a truck can make a guy feel like a man until we got our truck. There's something about being able to haul your own stuff in your own truck; beholden to no one. Shortly after we got the truck we were hauling some wood in a trailer and Zack said, "I've got my truck, I'm hauling a trailer full of firewood that I'm going to chop up for my woodburning stove, my dogs are in the back and my wife is in the seat next to me. Can it get any better than this?"

Maybe it can...

When we decided to get a truck we agreed that it would be used for good. When you have a truck people are going to ask you to help them move stuff. We agreed that we wouldn't complain when people asked us to help them. That's why we have a truck. To move stuff with. Since getting the truck we have used it for lots of things. He has helped people move stuff. Even though it's a smaller truck (it barely fits in the garage) his truck can do many things. At the cabin we discovered that he can put two kayaks on the back of the truck plus room for chairs, coolers and life jackets.

He can even fit an ATV in the back of his truck.

But my favorite image of him and the truck is that of last Monday. That's when he drove away with two boys in the back seat and a scout trailer attached to back. He was on his way to scout camp for the first time as scoutmaster. This was not an easy call to accept. It took a lot of humility to accept a call that he was sure almost every guy in the ward was more qualified for. It took, and still takes, a lot of patience to work with 12 and 13 year old boys. It takes a lot of commitment and time and work. It was hard to take 5 days off of work to spend up in the mountains with someone other than his wife. But he did it. He's doing a great job. And even though there are times he grumbles because it's hard or takes time away from being with me, he does it, because he knows who it was who called him to do it. And he's doing a pretty good job with those boys.

And I have to admit, the truck makes a huge difference. It's probably one of the best uses "for good" that I can think of right now. I hope it gets a lot more use like that.