[FetchMeAPepsi]

I have two memories but I was pretty young for both so they're kinda short.

First, my dad had an old orange and white 68 (iirc) Chevy long bed fleetside pickup with a huge camper on the back. When I rode with him with those custom Daddy Arm seatbelts (karate chop at every stop light lol) he would gas on it and say, "You hear that son? That's 400 cubic inches of raw power. Listen to 'er run!" I thought that sounded like the space shuttle taking off. Also he was a smoker. I remember him with the window cracked and smoking a marlboro and catching a whiff of the newly lit cigarette blowing back in the cabin. To this day I can't help but like the smell of a newly lit cig, though I'm adamantly against smoking myself.

My grandfather had a 65 or so big green Apache. It was also a longbed fleetside monster, but someone had put big rubber on the stock steel wheels. At the age of 8ish he had to lift me up into the thing. And to watch him steer was funny. The steering was so worn out on it he had to spin it back and forth a half turn of the wheel to keep it between the ditches.

One day we were driving to town for something and we passed a freshly ran-over raccoon. He stopped the car in the middle of the old 2 lane highway and grabbed that old coon by the tail, flipping it into the truck bed. We brought it home and that's the day I learned to skin a coon and what a pelt was. We sold it for $5.00 to the local furrier and bought ice cream with the proceeds. I still think about that when I pass a coon on the road, though I haven't ever picked up one myself. Living in town I'm not sure I could find a furrier anyway. But maybe I could make a hat?

Anyway, thanks Dad and Grandpa for the experiences. You were truly a fantastic parent/grandparent and I couldn't have gotten any luckier had I custom ordered you two.

Thank you.