In the spring of 1950, I was surfing at San Onofre when a friend named Burrhead drove up in a brand-new Chevrolet panel delivery truck. It was the perfect surfing wagon and he had already converted the inside into what I thought was the perfect apartment on wheels.
I had 37 rolls of exposed Kodachrome film that I was somehow going to convert into a feature-length ski film. Once I did that I knew I would be traveling a lot and if I got a truck like this I could live in it while I was traveling and showing this ski film about Squaw Valley the first winter.
I quickly sold my Ford business coupe, got a short-term small loan from my grandmother and proudly drove away in a fire engine red, 1950 Chevy panel delivery truck. This was the first new automobile of my life and for an extra $150 added onto the $1,300 purchase price I was able to buy all the bells and whistles in my new apartment on wheels.
I drove the truck and lived in it at ski resort parking lots from Southern California to British Columbia and as far east as Stowe, Vermont.
I had a nice bed in it, a stove to cook on, ample storage space for skis plus my projector and camera equipment and my horizon was as far as gasoline could take me.
During the winter of 1950/51 while I was just getting the film business under way, I pounded nails Monday through Friday, then picked up three or four people and we drove to Mammoth Mountain for a weekend of filming. They bought the gas for the 700-mile round trip.
In 1953 while sleeping in the parking lot at Aspen I met a fellow who lived in an exclusive suburb north of Chicago and wanted me to show my film to his son’s private school.
Since I was driving to New York City anyway, why not?
I did feel a little awkward however when he had me park in the alley behind his three-car garage so the neighbors wouldn’t see my truck. The garbage truck woke me up at 5:30 the next morning.
I got up, cooked breakfast and began the rest of the trip to New York City.
The trip took two or three days less than I had planned, so I took a detour north to Stowe, Vermont, to film and was able to include an eastern ski resort in my third ski film.
One Friday night after pounding nails all day I drove north, got as far as Klamath Falls, Oregon, and ran into a blizzard. I parked the van in the bus parking lot and rode the bus to Eugene, Oregon to show and narrate the film. Then I got back on the bus rode back to Klamath Falls, got in my truck and only missed one day of pounding nails. My only overhead was gasoline and the drive time.
My wife Laurie teases me about being perfectly content living in a truck, a small motorhome or a trailer. I see nothing wrong with that attitude because the more stuff you have the more time it takes to take care of it and move it from point A to point B.
The big red truck had twice the amount of space that I was given when I went aboard my first Navy ship at Guadalcanal.
For some reason my three children never owned or lived in a truck, but then why should they? They grew up on the beach in Southern California and enjoyed free ski trips. They still act like the ski areas should put them up for free. That’s the unfortunate entitlement attitude of Southern California.
If you want to give your children a great graduation present, buy them a truck to live in and give them a gasoline credit card and tell them you’ll see them in a year.
Some of the most enjoyable moments of my life have been when I woke up in the morning in that big red truck buried in 18 inches of powder snow, under a blue sky and I had plenty of film to capture that beauty instead of having to spend the money for room and board.