June 03, 2021
Volume 51 - No. 22
By Sean Dietrich
He bought his son a new truck for a graduation gift. Well, actually, the truck isn’t new, it’s a 2008 Silverado 1500, lightly used, with only 72,000 miles. Not a bad deal.
As soon as they bought the vehicle the first thing they did was take it for a long ride along the smooth, scenic rural highways of Alabama. Disney World for Chevy and Ford owners.
The graduate and his dad piled into The Paper - 760.747.7119
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the front cab and tore out for the hinterlands. Graduate at the wheel; Dad in the passenger seat, gripping the chicken handle. University of Alabama sticker on the bumper. The graduate did all the things guys are supposed to do when they purchase a truck. He lightly let go of the wheel at medium speed to make sure the steering didn’t pull. He gave the gas pedal a workout.
He made sure the radio was working, although they couldn’t find any theme music. American radio went
downhill a long time ago. There was a time when you could hear Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, or Spade Cooley on the airwaves. Today, nobody even knows who those guys are.
The graduate kept his window down. The fields of peanuts and cotton whipped by at fifty-five. The kid draped his hand out the window and made an airplane with his flat palm. They stopped at a gas station. His dad got pork rinds and coffee. The
The Graduate Continued on Page 2
graduate got spicy ghost-pepper beef jerky, the kind that will wreck a man’s bowels for the next nineteen years. Young man’s food. “Can I drive?” said Dad, sounding like a young man himself. “Sure.”
So they switched places. Dad took the wheel and draped his flat palm out the window and made an airplane too.
And he thought about the graduate