As a twenty-something kid with a decent job, minimal responsibilities and few wants, I spent a lot of time just knocking around on my days off, visiting friends.

It was not unusual to see me and my old '56 Big Window Flatbed pick up tooling around Burien, Federal Way, or West Seattle, toting my dogs, a guitar and frisbee, enjoying the dependability and usefulness of that truck.

One day I parked it in a friends yard after a very rainy afternoon and could not get it back out. With terribly bald tires and a light weight rear end, the old flatbed could not manage even the smallest inclines if there was any mud at all.

This isn't good. I tore up that friends yard, backing up and gassing it until it looked like Ben Hur had fought his last battle there.

I swore that I would never be in this position again and began to look for a new truck, one with four-wheel drive.

Scanning the classifieds, I saw an ad at a local dealership for a likely replacement.

I told a buddy about it, and since he was in the market for a truck himself, we went to the lot together.

Dale shuffled off to look at a 1/2 ton with fancy wheels on it, while I zeroed in on my conquest, a 1976 F250 Four Wheel Drive Explorer.

This was one of those trucks that had the sort of stance that commands attention.

A factory HighBoy, with very stout lines, squared off shoulders and well muscled fender lines, it looked like it wanted to go to work, but most of all, it was four-wheel drive and mud or snow was no different to it than pavement.

It was a medium metallic green with white stripes along the fenders and hood, beautiful in a stoic way, and I simply pointed at it when the salesman walked up.

We took it for a ride while Dale was test-driving his choice, and I knew this was the truck I wanted.

Back in the little sales office, I smiled at Dale across the hall where he was negotiating his deal. Then, when I turned to look out the window at the truck he was buying, I saw three guys pile into my new truck and begin to drive it over curbs and roar out of the lot. I was shocked.

To this day, I'm not certain what the problem was, but I felt like someone was stealing my truck and I blurted to the salesman, "The deal is OFF!" and I galumphed out of the office.

Dale saw this and inexplicably, he canceled his deal as well and together we drove away in my beat up flatbed, both miffed and bereaved.

I still don't like car salesmen much, but it wasn't really his fault. For some reason, the timing wasn't right, it just wasn't meant to be.

About five years ago, I'm working as a carpenter on a job site in Edgewood, and I saw a truck across the street that looks familiar.

Low and behold, it is the exact model, right down to the white racing stripes across the hood.

I felt a strange kinship with it, figuring it might be the same truck I had failed to own nearly fifteen years previous.

I eyed it longingly as I came and went on that job and on the last day I asked the boss who the owner of the truck might be. He told me that it belonged to another contractor, but that the poor thing had been sitting there for weeks and he didn't think it ran anymore.

I had a pretty solid vehicle at that time, a Ford cargo van, but my mind flopped around at night wondering how I might latch onto this truck, since I had missed my chance back in the early eighties.

When I drove by a few days later, the truck was gone and I was cheated once again.

Just this last summer, my good, long-time buddy Crazy Jack calls me.

I hadn't seen him in few months and he wanted help setting some tile in his kitchen. I show up, and guess what I see in his driveway. A 1976 F250 Highboy, painted dark blue, I am immediately attracted to it. I ask Jack what the deal is and he says, offhandedly, "Oh..that? I just bought it from some guy...found it in Edgewood."

WHAT?

I went to the truck and opened the door and astoundingly, though the outside was blue, the interior and doorjambs were painted metallic green.

When I looked closely at the hood and fenders, I could see the outline of the original white pin striping.

This was too unusual a circumstance to be mere chance.

The union of myself with this truck was meant to be, and I told this to Jack. "This is my truck."

Jack screwed up his eyebrows, "Huh?"

It took me a while to explain my historic pursuit of the now seriously aging machine and I expected him to shoot me down with denial or disbelief, but he just said, "Hey buddy, if you want it, I'll just give it to you."

I felt a warm sensation of love course through my, both for my pal and for the big lump of iron before us both and we shook on it.

After I completed the tile work, I fired up the old Ford and drove it home.

Next - Part Three.