Every man loves his pickup because his truck is an extension of his personality and reflects his priorities. I didn’t realize how much I live in my truck until my son called from South Carolina and asked me to bring him a few things that required this honored vehicle. However, to carry these items meant I had to clean my truck up on the outside and out on the inside.
How can a man accumulate so much stuff in one truck’s backseat? I started with all my hunting gear and worked downward and found my crossbow, a folding chair, two pairs of boots, a day bag with essentials and two sets of camos. As I removed these priceless items I realized they had been in there since last year. The socks in the boots gave them away. When I got to the floorboard the discoveries got even better. Here lie the last remains of coffee cups, coke cans and candy wrappers. These relics constituted many a breakfast on the way to the woods and represented enough calories, caffeine and sugar to put a man in a coma. Two large leaf bags later and I had those puppies safely removed. The EPA would have worn a hazardous material suit to tackle my backseat, but I didn’t let a few billion germs bother me, no sir, I’m not a sissy…cough, cough!
Next I attacked the bed of my truck like a man on a mission. After removing the bed cover I jumped back in fear thinking I had been assaulted. Then I realized it was just the antlers of a deer skull caught in the cover. Actually I was glad to find this valuable artifact because I couldn’t remember what I did with that deer last year; I thought I took it to the processor. Boy, that took some cleaning. Along with the deer skeleton I found my chain saw, a tractor seat and a 2007 seed catalog. Huh, I even found the sack of seeds I ordered that year for my food plots. That explains why those fields looked so bare in ’07.
My next step was to open all the doors and let down the tailgate. I then took my 200 mph leaf blower and gave that baby a good going over. It looked like a Sahara dust storm coming out the other side of the truck and the bed resembled a small tornado with a large debris field. It was the first time my floor mats had seen the daylight in several years. To tell you the truth I didn’t even know I had floor mats.
You know, we carry a lot of unnecessary garbage around in our lives. We get so busy living our lives we don’t even realize how much trash we are accumulating. We simple toss it behind us and figure if it is out of sight then it’s out of mind. My truck wasn’t designed to be an oversized garbage bin. The interior was made to look good, feel comfortable and accommodate all my needs. I trashed all those qualities by being in too big of a hurry, having other things on my mind and different priorities. The truth is a good soul cleaning at the altar is more important than a truck overhaul. After all, we are designed for better things than being a spiritual dumpster.
Now that I have all the stuff out of my truck I’ve asked the fire department to wash it with their highest pressure hose because I can’t remember what color it is under all that mud and grime.
Dr. Gerald Hallmark is interim pastor at First Baptist Church of Tallassee.
