CHERRY RED PICKUP TRUCK

One day when I was at work, we needed to get an airline ticket to a client about an hour away. The people in the office called everyone they had used in the past and no one could do it. The owner asked if anyone knew someone that could do it, so I called Robert. It was summer and he was off from school and he had a car.

He said yes, came to the office to pick up the ticket and address, and was on his way. In those days we didn’t have GPS, just maps, so it had to be a real challenge for him, since he was quite young and a fairly new driver.

 He had to go north of New York City over one of the three bridges to get to West Chester County. As he was driving along, he happened to spot a cherry red pickup truck with a for sale sign on it. He couldn’t stop on his way there because he had a deadline, but he stopped on the way back.

One thing about Robert, when he wanted something, he wanted it, and no one could stop him. He decided he wanted to buy that truck and he did. The floor of the cab was almost totally gone, the cargo bed was so rusted you couldn’t put anything in it. This truck became his project. He managed to reinforce the floor of the cab and built a new cargo bed out of wood. He did an awesome (his word) job, but he spent thousands of dollars on it and it never was quite what he had wanted it to be.

Before going into the hospital for the bone marrow transplant, Robert drove that truck to my cousin Harry Zackowitz’s body shop. The truck sat there forever after Robert died. Harry just couldn’t bear to get rid of it, so it remained there until he sold the business. Even after that, Harry kept the truck's bumper at home until he sold the house and moved.