Dad’s Old ‘52

My project to digitize a lifetime of slides and negatives continues. I’m not in a rush. I scan a batch and spend a couple of weeks working to make them presentable. Sometimes there are surprises. Last week I was scanning a batch of unfiled negatives and was excited to see pictures of my Dad’s old ’52 Chevrolet pickup appearing on the screen. I hadn’t seen it for 30 years and found myself getting a little emotional.

There are always a lot of emotions and memories connected to old farm trucks. You associate them with the person who drove them. Dad’s old ’52 was a “gift” from my grandfather. Dad drove it to date my mom and used it on the farm until ’68 when he bought a new Chevy to replace it.

I was born just before he retired the ’52, so my early memories of the truck involve Dad taking me on rides to check the crops or to get the mail on a Saturday. My memories of the truck are connected to my memories of Dad’s dog, Missy. Missy was a jet-black cocker spaniel who would appear whenever she heard the whine of the ‘52’s old starter. Where the truck went, Missy went. I was conflicted about this because Missy was a rescue dog and had been abused by kids. Being a kid, she didn’t let me close to her so sharing the limited space in the cab was always dicey.

Photographically, I don’t have much to tell you. I don’t remember what kind of film I was shooting – some kind of color negative film. I do remember the camera, which was a Minolta Maxxum 7i with a 28-85 Minolta lens. I was working at a camera store at the time and the company rep lent me a bag of equipment to “test out”. I remember being impressed with the camera.