If I had a buck for every time somebody told me that I had the best job in the world I’d more than likely be able to hire someone to finish my pickup project. Seriously though, as much as I whine about it I have to admit you folks are correct, I do have a great career. Sure, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention that meeting deadlines, or at least attempting to, has worn on me as time has passed (I’ve been trying to stay a step ahead of the Page Police for 17 years so far). I sometimes equate it to writing a term paper for the rest of your life – believe me, producing a magazine every 28 days or so can be less than pleasant at times. That said though, I wouldn’t trade the job for nearly anything.
All kidding aside, spending my waking hours surrounded by cool classic pickups at events, in shops, and my favorite – in folks’ home garages is a wonderful way to make a living. Without a doubt though the best, most enjoyable, and most rewarding aspect of this career is the opportunity it presents to meet all the great people in the hobby. Over the years I’ve been blessed to have made friends and acquaintances in nearly every state in the continental U.S. including truck owners, industry members, and potential new members of this great hobby.
A great example occurred just recently. I’d received, as always, my daily stack of correspondence and classic truck images from dozens of readers and a few of ’em were from a trio who not only had some really good-looking homebuilt pickups, but all three were based in nearby Arizona. The more I looked at the images they’d sent and reread the notes included, I decided to jump in the car (as my truck is far from road ready) and head out for a bit of a road trip to check these babies out in person. After a few back and forth emails, I made plans to meet the guys over the course of a couple of days. Once I arrived, I discovered that not only were these classic pickups nicer in person than they were in pictures, the owners were all great guys whose company made my 14-hour round-trip drive worth every second.
The first afternoon I met up with John and Rick Lister, the owners of a pair of good-looking Chevy C10s. The guys had scouted out a great location for the photo shoot in the Arizona desert and once we arrived and began setting up the trucks for the shoot we got a visit from local law enforcement. It turned out that the location the Lister brothers had chosen was on an Indian reservation and we were kindly asked to vacate the area. The officer was kind enough to suggest another off-reservation site about 10 miles down the road that wasn’t quite as neat as the first, but served us well in the end. The next day I headed south from the Fountain Hills area and met up with Derek Herring, the owner of a really nice GMC Stepside. Derek had done a bunch of site hunting himself and found an equally nice shoot location as I’d enjoyed the day before, and this time we didn’t even get booted out of our location.
The shoot with Derek and his GMC went off without a hitch and in conversation during the shoot Derek mentioned his interest in photography as well as classic trucking. This led to a bit of guidance on my part (for whatever that was worth) and Derek ended up shooting the GMC as I did the same. As we both finished up the shoot I got to check out some of Derek’s photography and found that his images were every bit as good as mine. In fact, there’s a really good chance that you’ll be seeing some of Derek’s work in CLASSIC TRUCKS in the near future as I’ll be giving him an opportunity to shoot some features for us.
So, as I said earlier, you folks are right, I do have the best job in the world and most of the reason it’s true is because of great people like you. Thanks to you all. See ya next month!