The Truck

This would have been 1971, maybe '72. I was sixteen. Dad had this old International pickup, green one, and he told me never to take it out on the ice. So of course me and Denny Kowalczyk took it out on the ice. On Burt Lake, in March, which is, you know, March is when you don't do that.

We're out there doing donuts and having a good old time when I hear this sound like a rifle shot. Denny goes, "Walt, I think we oughta go." I said, "Yeah, I think so." And the back end just dropped.

We got out through the windows, the both of us, and we're standing there soaked up to the waist, watching the back half of Dad's truck sitting in the lake, front tires still up on the ice. Denny says to me, "Well, you're dead." I was thinking the same thing.

We walked about two miles to Hoppies Tavern and called my dad from the payphone. He didn't yell. That's the thing, he didn't yell. He just said, "Stay there." He came with my uncle Ray and a wrecker and they winched it out. He never said one word to me the whole ride home. Not one word. I'd rather he hit me, honestly.