
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 8, 1994                   TAG: 9411080078
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TRUCK ENVY, AND OTHER DEADLY SINS

I figure by today everyone's had it up to their eyeballs with politics, so instead I'll shovel out a topic that's near and dear to the hearts of many drivers in Southwest Virginia: pickup trucks.

We're talking truck envy.

Let me, as the professors say, define my terms.

A truck can range from the extremes of either your classic ramshackle backwoods pickup, the kind where Granny Clampett rides shotgun while you sprawl in the bed and watch the road whiz by through the holes in the rusted-out bed. Or it can be a snazzy new "sports utility vehicle" that has an enclosed passenger area, a chablis dispenser and customized Eddie Bauer leather seats along with the requisite, and perhaps unnecessary, four-wheel drive.

Envy is, well, one of those ol' seven deadlies. A young woman I know dressed up as "Envy" for Halloween (she's one of those creative types): green face paint, frown, scowl, the whole bit.

Truck envy is the feeling you get when you're out there, in those great Appalachian Mountains, and all of the sudden you realize that your vehicle just isn't quite up to snuff.

That happened to me recently deep in the wilds of Sugar Run Mountain in beautiful, bucolic Giles County. I'd been out working that early fall day, clearing some trail one last time before winter. I had a brush cutter, a chain saw, fuel, some hard hats, chaps - in short, an entire assortment of woods gear.

But I also had a squirty Mazda 323 in which to cram all of the above. Getting that much equipment into such a small car is no mean feat. It takes precision maneuvering, some grunting and the occasional pause to say, "If I only had a truck ..."

I had finished the trail work and was walking back down a Forest Service road to my car when a pickup came by and its occupants, a kind couple from Staffordsville, offered me and my brush cutter a ride. They dropped me off at the gap, and I began to load my subdued sedan when another pickup happened by from the opposite direction. They stopped to talk to each other, cop-in-the-parking-lot style, driver's window to driver's window. They looked over at me, as I gingerly maneuvered the 6-foot-long brush cutter in through the trunk and over the pulled-down passenger seats. They had a look of pity in their eyes.

"Hey boy," I could hear them thinking, "what you need is a truck."

I finished loading, hopped in the car and eased on down through High Fields farm and into Wilburn Valley, tail-between-the-legs style.

Ever since, I can't help but notice trucks as I drive around town: big burly pickups with jacked-up suspensions and oversized tires; modest, unassuming Japanese and domestic pickups with petite beds; slick utility vehicles loaded down with more options than a presidential position paper. I look the other way when I pass by the dealerships, the better to avoid another of the seven deadlies: covetousness. Also, I'm trying to avoid running into an acquaintance who just last week took delivery of a brand-spanking new Ford Explorer (color: cranberry).

I'm beginning to think that this thing for pickups could be a symptom of aging. Just like with a pair of old reliable jeans, after a few years you begin to want something with, well, a little more room in the back and on the sides.

by CNB