Marfa Trucks. 73-87 GM. West Texas Vernacular

Okay, love the poems, but it's time to get back to metal. Trucks. Don't know why I like 'em, exactly, but I do. Perhaps it has to do with growing up in an apartment in the middle of a city, with a European father, and living inside a totally truckless culture. They came to symbolize removal, freedom, escape. The trope still has pull. Trucks also mean the West to me. When I worked on a cattle ranch in the Alberta foothills in the 70s I drove a '61 Chevrolet Apache from the ranch to the beer parlour in Sundre, Alberta every Saturday night; and once to the Calgary Stampede. Then Toby Clark and I headed from Alberta to Texas in 1984 in a 1-ton grain truck, a 1952 Chevrolet. Oh I forgot to mention learning to drive when I was 12 in Ste-Marguerite Station, Quebec in a 1952 Chevrolet pickup with a suicide knob and Montana plates.

Now we spend a piece of the year in Marfa, Texas where there's a warm wind, plenty of dust, and no rust, so old trucks around: it's distracting. Here are a few examples of everyday old trucks: West Texas Vernacular Vehicles. All 1973-87 Chevrolets and GMCs, except the handsome 1958 Chevy immediately  below.