Tuesday, January 14, 2003 ushered in the dawn of a new age: The Third Age of Jack.

As you may or may not know, I have a 1969 Chevy 3/4 ton pickup named Jack. He is my first vehicle. First one registered in my name; first one I bought with my own dime. He is white and a little rusty. He has a 250 straight-six, rather than the stock V-8 (not my choice: I bought him like that). I bought Jack for $800 (paid in monthly installments) from Windy's step-dad, Bill, when he and Windy's Mommi moved from Longview, Washington, to Florida. That was back in.... ohhhhh... about 1996, I reckon.

Trucks make you say things like that: "reckon".

Here is a photo of my truck, taken a week or so after I got him. The photo is a bit grainy, as I scanned it into a .jpg file years ago, when all I had was a crummy feed-through scanner. One day, I'll re-scan this photo.

I've done a couple of things to Jack to make him a little more enjoyable; added some stuff, fixed some stuff. Most noteably, an AM/FM stereo cassette player (that's a HUGE upgrade from the factory one-speaker-in-the-dash AM radio that was in it) and - a few years ago - an early-70's-heavy-duty-aluminum-siding-and-woodgrain-panel-double-wall canopy. I removed the tailgate and built double-doors on the back of the canopy, carpeted the floor, made it nice for trips and camping. The canopy was old and a little ratty, but free.

Got a lot of use, miles and enjoyment out of that canopy. However, all things must come to an end and the useful life of the canopy had reached its sad and trailing end. It leaked and mouldered and leaned, but refused to just fall off entirely. I was unable to truly take the plunge and remove the blight because, while I wouldn't exactly call it "waterproof", it was just water-resistant enough to make it a damn sight better than no canopy at all when hauling things you wanted to keep dry. Like friends.

The bed that was on my truck was probably the stock bed, if not from this exact truck. It had a wood floor instead of metal. When the truck came into my hands, the wooden bed was already in lousy shape and covered with a layer of decrepit plywood that sort of made it stronger, I suppose. The bed sat a little funny, since the carriage bolts that attach the bed to the frame were driven through the (rotting) wood bed, which lacked in structural integrity. Fortunately, there were eight bolts, which gave us good odds that at least four of them were still serving a purpose,

When I put the canopy on the truck, I put a sheet of plastic moisture barrier on top of the existing plywood, with another layer of new, strong 3/4" plywood on top of that. Later I carpeted the plywood with some gray remnant stuff from 2nd Use. Much later, I re-carpeted with a single piece of good, industrial weave sisal-type stuff.

This carpet and wood bed nonsense conspired to delay the canopy's execution, since removing the canopy would expose the carpet. Removing the carpet would expose plywood. Removing the plywood would expose gods-knew-what sort of rotten situation I'd been avoiding dealing with for the last five years or so. You see my problem.

However, on January 13, 2003, the situation changed. Scot, Mike and I went to a wrecking yard to look for a new truck bed for my birthday. Found a nice dark green one they were asking $350 for, but it didn't have a tailgate. The guy at the wrecking yard assured me that a tailgate could be found and included in the deal for another $100, which I thought was kind of steep. As I hemmed and hawed, he sort of sidled 'round to me and said that he had a black bed with primer tailgate at home in pretty good shape that he could "let" me "have" for $350, all told, which was closer to what I had expected the haggling to start at. I told him that I'd like to see this other bed and he told me to call him tomorrow. When I left the wrecking yard, I knew that, regardless of which one I ended up choosing, it was definitely time to get a new bed.

The next day, I began the long process of removing the canopy and carpet from the bed of the truck, since I figured I could get the guys at the wrecking yard to take my old bed for scrap or body panels. Here is the very last photo I took of Jack, before removing the blight from his back.

First, I removed the roof rack in one piece, in case someone else could use it as-is. Here it is leaning up against Kelly's bus.

Next, I removed the rear double-doors, the door frame, and the side canopy windows. At this point, Mike came out and started helping out. He detatched all the canopy wiring for me, then started in on the bolts holding the canopy on the bed. Scot came out and I had him scavenge all of the marker lights and lenses (they are a neat teardrop shape). Mike and I ripped out the two layers of carpet, then dragged the 3/4" plywood out, then ripped up the plastic moisture barrier.

Now, at the time, I was willing to leave it like this. Aside from removing the canopy carcass, I'd torn the bed down to the state it was in when I bought it. Mike, however, began tugging at the old rotten plywood, which wasn't giving up that easily. He wanted to see what the original bed looked like. After a few initial misgivings, my curiosity got the better of me and I fell to ripping up plywood as well. What we found was even worse than I'd imagined.

The words "dry" and "rot" don't even begin to describe what was going on down there. As Mike and I minced gingerly around on the bed (being very careful to step directly on the metal cross-braces that ran the width of the bed AFTER i fell through the bed in one place) , poking at the wood and watching with dismay as it disintigrated before our eyes, I wondered what had kept the bed attached to the frame for so long. Must have been gravity and luck. The weight of the canopy probably kept the bed from lifting up off the frame enough to allow the bolts to finally pull through once and for all. Here's a photo of the gutted canopy, with rotten original bed.

Here is a photo of the pile of crap that was ripped out of the bed and canopy.

Finally, there was nothing left to do but remove the canopy. I had a Plan. It was a Plan I had conceived well over a year ago while camping. It rained, and some bedding I had thought safely away from the (many) leaky parts of the canopy was soaked anyhow, by an all-new previously undocumented leak. I knew then that it was time to ditch the canopy and, as I tried to get to sleep in my damp sleeping bag, on my damp pillow, I warmed myself dreaming up how I would go about removing the canopy from the truck. Here is a photo showing the Plan, followed by a series of photos documenting the implementation of the Plan.

The only two parts of my original Plan that I was unable to carry out were the part where the tree to which I tied the canopy was out in the middle of nowhere, and the part where - after the canopy hits the ground - I just keep on driving and don't look back. Oh well. It was still immensely satisfying, as demonstrated in the next photo.

I wish that I had taken a photo of the back of the cab immediately after removing the canopy. It was filthy with several years' worth of slime and muck and algae. When sitting in the cab, the view out the back window was like looking into a particularly unkempt saltwater aquarium. Needness to say, I cleaned it immediately. Here is a photo of the back of the cab, all nice and clean, and unobstructed by the canopy, which is now on its side, in the right of the photo.

About an hour later, Mike and I were on our way out to Everett to look at the black truck bed with primer tailgate. To make a very boring part of the story short, the bed was at the junkyard guy's friend's house and in pretty damn good shape. There was a little surface rust but nothing bad, a couple of pushed-in parts along the sides, but in overall really surprisingly good shape. I got the guy to come down to $300 and agree to take the old bed off my hands and assist in the trading of bed, supplying an angle grinder or cutting torch if need-be.

Left there happy and excited. So excited, in fact, that I had to go tell Windy all about it, show her what was left of the bed, and buy a bottle of RUM. Windy came over to stay at our house that night. I had a hard time sleeping and got up early with a revelation: if I didn't remove all the wood from the bed of the truck, the act of removing the bed would knock rotten wood and rusty chunks of metal all over that guy's friend's nice gravel driveway. Our driveway, however, could be swept. So I spent an hour ripping up rotten wood. Came in for some lunch, went back out and put the large sheet of 3/4" plywood back in the truck bed. Then I began to disassemble the canopy so I could haul it to the dump. Mike and Scot came out and, really, it didn't stand a chance. We used axes and a circular saw and in time it was in pieces and in the back of the truck, along with all the rest of carpet and wood and crap from the bed.

When we went to the transfer station, they weighed us on the way in, and then on the way back out... we ditched 500 pounds at the dump! Got out of there for a modest $24.

Here, another boring part of the story must be skimmed. That evening, Windy kindly agreed to stay home with Bo (who had a lot of homework) while Mike and Scot and I went to make the bed exchange. It was cold and dark and took about two hours, but it went pretty smoothly and straightforwardly. Finally, we were all reconnected and headed to Wal-Mart for a celebratory burger. Got home at about 8:30, tired but triumphant.

What's that? Oh! How thoughtless of me. You want to see what my truck looks like with his new bed. Here you go:

We've been referring to it as the coptruck. He looks mean! I think that instead of painting the bed white, I'll paint the cab black. I've always wanted a black vehicle. Sekrit Dreem. Maako, here I come. Also, considering the price of the trim I'd need to finish out the bed in the same manner as the cab, I think I'll just remove what's on the cab and sell it, to help fund the new paint job. I guess I should think about having the rain gutter fixed, too.