Gas prices hard on pickup truck fans

Larry McDaniel was the first to notice. “You’re driving a car,” he said when I got out in the Enterprise-Journal parking lot. “You look like you’d be more natural in a Willys Jeep or your old pickup truck.”
One by one others wondered aloud why I — Mr. Outdoors Editor — was driving a sleek little Chevrolet Impala.
The answer is simple. Last time I filled up my pickup truck it cost me $78.
That’s $78 — $22 shy of $100. To fill up a vehicle.
I’m old enough to remember being surprised when gas reached 35 cents a gallon and shocked when it hit 50.
I’ve been driving pickup trucks almost since I was old enough to drive. As soon as I could buy my own vehicle, I purchased a 1967 Chevrolet pickup truck and rode it through two motors.
Then came a Ford Courier, Chevy, Toyota, Nissan, and I’m on my third Dodge. But after that last gas bill, I decided to park it, more or less.
It’s not that the truck — a 1997 long-wheel-base with 240,000 miles — get’s bad gas mileage. It gets 18 miles to the gallon. But I commute 60 miles round trip just to work, plus a lot of driving in addition — to the tune of 25,000 miles a year.
Since my wife Angelyn is retired (after 28 years of teaching school) and doesn’t drive as much anymore, the solution seemed simple. I’d take her Impala, which gets 28 mpg, to work and use the truck only occasionally.
So far it’s working. Sort of.
Problem is, I keep all sorts of important outdoor gear in my truck. Rubber boots stuffed upside down between the cab and the bed. Hiking boots shoved under the passenger seat. A can of mosquito repellent. A compass. An orange cap for deer season. A “Mississippi Atlas and Gazetteer.” Assorted tools.
It’s not practical to move this stuff back and forth, so I leave it in my truck. Which means when I’m in the car, I’m lacking vital outdoors equipment.
I feel like a cowboy who leaves his rope and his rifle in the barn when he’s riding the range.
Then there’s the ambience. The car is nimble, low to the ground, with a CD player. The truck has a vast turning radius, stands well off the pavement, and for music has just a radio. I like the simplicity.
I can’t imagine not owning a truck. How else can I haul canoes, camping equipment, compost, potted trees, lawn mower and furniture?
But I’m not complaining. The car is comfortable and saves money. I’m all for that.
Compact trucks are too small for me, and the new mid-sized trucks get about the same gas mileage as my full-size. With gas nudging $3 off and on since Hurricane Katrina, I don’t see a return to the good old days — for me anyway.
But I must be ahead of my time. Local car dealers say they haven’t seen any change in truck-buying habits.
“I sold a couple of four-wheel drives this morning. They didn’t think anything of it,” Bubber Johnson of Legacy Ford said Friday, though he has seen more people looking for used compact trucks.
“It’s amazing to me,” said Paige Howell of Howell Motors. “April was tremendous here. We had a great GMC truck and (Nissan) Titan truck month. I was shocked. Gas was higher in April, I think, than it is now.”
Both said truck lovers are just plain loyal to their vehicles, regardless of fuel costs.
I felt that way, too — until I reached the $78 mark. At that point my pocketbook trumped loyalty.

Writer tries hand with bluegrass gospel group

When I emerged from the sewing shop recently with a newly embroidered shirt, it finally felt official: I’m a member of Dogwood Cross.

The maroon golf shirt had the group’s emblem on one side and “Ernest” on the other. Wow!

Dogwood Cross is a bluegrass-gospel group based in the Dogwood Crossing community of Lincoln County, Miss. Now they have a banjo-player from Amite County.

I recognized as a young man that I have two talents: writing and music. In other words, those are two things I can do out of the many, many that I can’t.

I settled on writing as my vocation and played my music at home, in jam sessions and sometimes at church. And I was content with that.

But last December, Dogwood Cross member Keith Guy handed me the group’s CD. I was smitten and asked to practice with them. One thing led to another and I wound up a member.

The Bible tells us we are supposed to use the talents God gives us. It also tells us that to everything there is a season. This appears to be the season for me to use this talent.

My mainstay is the banjo, but I also dabble with other stringed instruments, like fiddle, guitar and banjo-mandolin. I take a relaxed approach to music, but our weekly rehearsals — which can go as long as four hours — are forcing me to get serious.

My fellow members are Thomas Bessonnette, who plays six- and 12-string guitar; Billy Gunther on banjo; Guy on mandolin, harmonica and fiddle; Tim Higginbotham on guitar, dobro and dulcimer (and his wife Wanda on the sound system); and Sam Moore on bass. A versatile bunch, obviously.

Unlike me, these guys are singers — fantastic singers at that. The combination of the vocals and the bluegrass instruments is what won me over.

Shortly after I joined, we played at the Southwest Mississippi Forestry Association annual banquet, then a benefit at Bogue Chitto Baptist Church and a concert at a church in Jackson.

We have gigs booked intermittently through February. I was relieved to learn the group rarely plays on Sunday mornings, since I like to attend my own church then.

Our schedule is complicated by the fact that Bessonnette works offshore, so roughly half the year is off-limits. I like that, too; I don’t want to be running all over the country every weekend.

I admit to having had trepidations shortly after I joined. What was I getting myself into?

There would be weekly practice sessions at Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, which is nearly an hour from my house and would mean getting home late on a work night. There would be concerts on Saturdays and Sundays when I’m used to working in my garden or taking some much-needed rest in the hammock.

But those fears quickly dissipated as I found myself eagerly looking forward to each get-together with the group. Playing with Dogwood Cross is a joy, not a chore.

Members are already talking about recording another CD this year, and we’re working on new material.

Music can be a ministry. How many times has it soothed your soul when you felt tormented? Turned your thoughts toward God and heaven? Helped you feel the “peace that passes understanding?”

Music pervades the Bible, especially the Psalms, so there’s no doubt that it can be ordained of God. I’m just glad to have a hand in it now, however small.