What was the most famous farm truck? This is a toss-up between the Beverly Hillbillies’ Model T that Jethro drove granny to Beverly Hills in as she sat in her rocking chair in the back, and the Model A that John Boy and his dad drove in The Waltons.
When I was a farm kid in the 1950s we couldn’t afford a truck, but it was my dad’s dream to have one. In the 1950s a half- ton truck, (besides a tractor), was one of the most useful machines on a farm. Remember that motorized vehicles (cars, trucks and tractors) only replaced horses after the Second World War.
Our first farm truck wasn’t even a truck but a 1937 Pontiac car that my dad removed the back seat from. He installed a sheet of quarter inch steel plate from the trunk lid to the back of the front seat, and beefed up the back leaf springs so that 10 eight gallon milk cans could fit in the back for a daily trip to the dairy in town to deliver our milk. On the way home, we usually stopped at the grist mill to pick up a half a ton of dairy ration for the milk cows and a bag of cow salt or mineral.
Often while on his morning trip taking the milk to the dairy, he picked up half my class and using the milk cans for seats we got a ride to school.
Our second farm truck was a second-hand 1950 GMC whose right front fender had had a previous encounter with a fence post. That was in the days when body work was in its infancy and someone had pounded a few wrinkles out of the fender and buttered it over with about 40 pounds of lead. Back then, a half-ton was a necessity not a status symbol. All small trucks then had a six-foot box because the eight-foot box hadn’t been invented.
One of the jobs for a farm truck each fall was to move bags of grain from the threshing mill to the grainery and when the six-foot box was filled with 100 pound bags of grain, the truck was already overloaded.
The western farmers in the 1950s bought one ton trucks with nine-foot dump boxes on the back to draw grain from the mill or later from the combine.
Our most memorable truck was a one ton 1956 Dodge with a nine-foot box. We had a black retriever dog then who went everywhere with my dad and traveled in the back so as not to get dirt from his paws on the seat. One day the pup couldn’t see because of a plywood cow box on the back so the lab just jumped up onto the roof and propped his paws on the clearance lights that all one tons had then. From that day on the black lab always rode on the roof. My dad even glued a sheet of soft rubber on the cab roof so that our dog could have better traction and a safer ride. My dad was only stopped once by the police while driving with the dog on the roof. Maybe the officer didn’t feel comfortable standing beside the old Dodge while the dog stared down at him from the roof!
Most farm kids, long before drivers’ education, were taught and learned to drive in the old half-ton that had a standard transmission while maneuvering in the back field, steering around stokes of grain and dodging cow plops.
Farm boys often used the farm half-ton for courting and girls commonly rode with their feet on the dash. One night during a fit of passion, it was reported that a girl pushed the front windshield right out of a 1953 GMC with her foot.
The six-foot box was too short for cows to travel in comfort and many farmers would leave the tailgate down and built a cattle rack as long as the six-foot box plus the tailgate. The animal was more comfortable in the longer box and stood with her back feet on the tailgate. Tailgates were a lot stronger then. Soon truck manufacturers built a truck with an eight foot box so that a cow could have more room.
When gas prices started to increase substantially both car and small truck manufacturers began using thinner metal for construction and one trip with a cow in the back of a modern half- ton would ruin the floor, fender, and tailgate of today’s trucks.
Vehicle colour is very important to many and some only drive a blue truck or some other favourite colour. Several years ago three farmers who lived close to each other, all bought red Ford trucks the same year. That made three wives constantly wonder whose truck was where?
One neighbour had a yellow Ford farm truck which was commonly loaded with everything from fencing supplies to tractor parts, gas cans, remnants of hay bales, bailer twine, tools, drugs for cattle and a thousand other things that the average person couldn’t even name. This truck was getting past its prime, the brakes squealed, the lights didn’t all work either, but the emergency brake handle was still there! When the police stopped that farmer because one signal light failed to do its job while turning into town, the considerate officer offered a 48-hour warning to get the old truck legal again. The farmer replied; “there isn’t enough mechanics in Shawville to get this truck legal in 48 hours!” The farmer just retired the old half-ton and the next day he made some truck salesman very happy!
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon
on land that has been in his
family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
