We Were There

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My kids, parents, and I were seven of the 40,000-some people attending last weekends National Truck Convention in Carlisle. The boys have been fascinated with monster trucks. Somebody gave us a cheesey Truck DVD from the 90's with a theme song full of some fine poetry:

What's scary but fun
and weighs more than one ton
it's a mighty mega monster truck

And I was interested too, for a few reasons.

Apparently for some people, a lot of people, trucks are a way of life. A way of horsepower and chrome, jean shorts and skull tattoos, shook me all night long and bob that head. The cylinders are high and the color most definitely not green. There's nothing about these people or this place that hints of gentleness.

Truck People

We drug ourselves across about three miles of people's precious babies all lined up for ogling, professional looking vendors, and guys sitting behind random hunks of dirty metal laying in the grass. I swear that someone knows what those hunks of metal are for.

Iturned quickly and caught this one in the act

of transforming.

Struggling to be in the present, I wondered what the huge inflatable bottle of Armour All says? The series of mud flaps and running boards with the silhouette of two busty ladies sitting back to back? All the massive and/or tricked-out machines were too much to recon. Some of them, the monster trucks, so terrible and awesome that we shout and pump our fists at the exercise of their mighty tires of destruction, chewing on the multitudes of yester years practical A to B autos.

Are the monsters entertaining monsters? Being that some 92% of people on earth have no vehicle? Considering the large scale compromises we make in order to fuel the machines we do have? There's nothing impressive about a 98 Ford Tempo. Or is there?

I'm sure someone has written about monster trucks and monster truck people and Jesus. I can't. I'm not even trying to figure out what it all means. There are a lot worse hobbies, I think. Of course it's not just the truck people who are maybe a little shy on perspective. While we all live in a house full of malnourishment and illness, Americans are off in our little corner room having eating competitions and academic debates over the merits of chicken versus beef for "ripped" abs.

Creepy interior skull for resting your left

elbow. What does it mean?

I'm pretty sure that Jesus would care about the truck people. No matter what I want to think about them, I can say that they were polite and inclusive each time we had a personal encounter. The guys eating lunch beside us at the picnic tables. The teenagers who moved over and encouraged the brothers to see the Jeeps do their thing on the big boulders. The vendors passing out freebies. The truck people watching four children try and fail at their fathers pleas to not touch the trucks.

The truck people were kind. They allow outsiders in, no nagging or questions asked. My family, from Dad to Maggs, had a nice time doing something together.

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