Rabbit Box Blog

As long as I knew him, Grandpa Nelson Shelton had a truck. In going through my growing set of family photos, I noticed how often one of his trucks is in the background.

He used to refer to his farm as a “truck farm.” As a child, I found this an odd term – he didn’t grow trucks, did he? No, came the answer, he carried what he grew to market on his truck rather than selling to buyers who came to the farm.

One of the pictures recently added to my collection is this one from Lee Ann Abernathy, daughter of Uncle Leroy Shelton. It shows Grandpa’s truck in the background. If memory serves, this was the one he called the best truck he ever had, and the one he sold by mistake.

He often bragged about the truck, and one day a man he knew offered to buy it. “No,” he answered, “I couldn’t sell that truck. I couldn’t buy one as good for the same money.”

But the man persisted and wouldn’t stop asking to buy the truck every time he saw Nelson. Finally, Grandpa threw out a number that he considered ridiculously high. He figured the man would see that he wouldn’t sell the truck at anything near a fair price, so he’d stop offering.

Instead, the man immediately agreed. Nelson, being a man of his word, and also someone who recognized a winning deal, reluctantly let the truck go. He mourned that truck for years, saying it was the best one he’d ever had, and he wished he still had it.