In the July of 1976, I had just got my truck out of the shop after I hit a deer with it. A deer will do significant damage to a 1975 Toyota Hi-Lux pickup truck. I must say, Dad was not amused. The truck was in the shop for about two weeks while it was being repaired. Just a couple of days after I got it back, my best friend approached me about having a bachelor party for a friend of his. I also knew this guy. He was a good guy. I lived in a trailer out at the farm where I took care of cattle for dad. It was a great place to hold a bachelor party.

A bachelor party in 1975 Craighead County Arkansas is not like the bachelor parties they have today. These days, folks fly to Vegas or New Orleans for a weekend of debauchery hanging out in casinos and bars with strippers and other ne’er do wells. Not us. No, back in the day a bachelor party was a keg of beer and a stereo in a location where police would not likely be summoned. A trailer in the middle of nowhere, 3 miles from the nearest neighbor was perfect.

The party was a monumental success. When you think about it, have you ever heard of a keg party that was not a monumental success? The party started about night fall and went deep into the night. I remember the music was a mixture of Waylon Jennings, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie and The Velvet Underground. Unlike the Vegas and New Orleans bachelor parties of today, we invited girls, non-professional girls if you know what I mean, to our party. What is a keg party without girls? It’s no fun, that’s what it is. A keg of beer, a stereo and pretty girls make for a good night.

At 10:30 or so, I was well into my beer and having a wonderful time with a pretty girl who apparently thought I could dance. We were really having a good time. My best friend again approached me.

“Garner, I need to borrow your truck.“

My best friend sounded completely sober to me as he explained that he needed to talk to his friend about this whole ‘getting married thing’. I was much more interested in my dancing partner than I was in what ever they were going to talk about. I tossed him my keys. Little did I know that to someone who is drunk, another drunk appears entirely sober. Apparently, I must have been pretty intoxicated because my best friend seemed to be completely sober to me. I was wrong.

Six hours later, I am awakened from my slumber by my best friend saying “Oh man! You won’t believe what happened to your truck!”

I sat up on the picnic table I had been sleeping on. On hearing his greeting, I was at once half sober and half hungover.

“Truck??!!!! Something happened to the truck,” I said sounding remarkably like Bobcat Goldthwait.

I staggered over to the truck as my best friend recounted how they were just driving down some gravel roads and talking when suddenly, and for no good reason, a grove of tiny pine trees materialized around them. It was tough going for a second, he said, but he floored it and the little Toyota truck lurched and growled it’s way through the grove of six foot tall pine tree saplings. They were lucky, he said, to have made it through all those trees without getting stuck.

I looked at my truck. The brand new, days old front end was now a crumpled mess with pine branches sticking out from every seam and opening. I became physically ill.

I didn’t know what to do. This can’t happen, I thought. I was just dumb founded. Someone suggested we have a beer and think this through. We walked over to the keg, and pumped it up for a second. I held my cup out, and the day got worse. The keg had kicked. It was empty. No beer.

My truck was wrecked again, the keg was empty and I was hung over. Could this day get worse?

Ever the problem solver, my best friend, knowing that beer could not be bought in Arkansas at 6:00AM on a Sunday morning, suggested a run to Missouri for beer so we could figure this out. I was really, really, really terrified of telling dad that the truck got wrecked again. I saw this as a big, big, big problem. It was the mother of all problems. I was pretty sure I could anticipate dad’s reaction to this. We had to figure out how to get the truck repaired with dad knowing that it had been wrecked for the second time in less than a month. The problem was, we had no money to work with.

We had to solve that problem, but to do that, we needed beer so we could think clearly. There was a place called Red Onion, over by Monette. Red Onion was in Missouri, and would sell you beer at 6:00AM on a Sunday. They didn’t care if you didn’t have an ID or not. Of course, they got a premium for 3.2% beer. Since none of us were 21, this was our place.

We found some rope and some duct tape to secure the bumper of the truck. I was concerned that it that might fall completely off on the way to Red Onion. We set off.

We hadn’t gone more than five miles when it happened. We topped a hill doing 60mph or so. Just as we crested the hill, we saw the road completely blocked by a herd of black angus cattle. I stomped the brakes as hard as I could. The wheels on the little truck locked the wheels up. We skidded like mad, gradually losing speed, but none the less closing in on the cattle. At first I thought we might get it stopped before we got into the herd, but I was wrong. We hit the herd. We hit it hard.

In a collision involving a 1975 Toyota Hi-Lux pickup truck and a herd of black Angus cattle, always take the cattle. It ain’t even close. The cattle can walk that impact off. A Toyota can’t.

We got out of my truck. I looked at the demolished front end and my already low spirits dipped lower still. Both fenders, which had escaped damage the night before, were now crushed. There was no grill any more. You could clearly see the radiator. The bumper which was held on by duct tape and rope now lay on the ground, twisted like a giant pretzel.

I couldn’t breath. I was dizzy. My life was flashing before my eyes. My truck was trashed beyond belief. Not only had my friends driven it through a stand of pine trees, but now I had hit not one cow, but a whole herd of cattle. It’s one thing to wreck a truck twice in one month, but it’s a whole order of magnitude worse to wreck it twice in a single day. It wasn’t even noon yet. Standing, just looking at the truck, I was frozen. I knew Dad was going to lose his mind. The rancher and his helpers came up. They were shouting something, but I don’t remember what.

I was distraught. The front of the truck was a crumpled mess covered with cow dung. I looked at my friends. My best friend was beaming and smiling like it was Christmas. I thought, “Clearly, he’s lost his mind.”

He walked over to me holding a pine tree bough that he plucked from the wreckage. He closely examined the bough, and then tossed it aside. Smiling like a Cheshire cat he said “Pine trees? What pine trees?”

I didn’t understand what he was talking about. He physically grabbed my head and turned it. We stared at the front of the truck. It was demolished and covered with semi-liquid cow dung. Again, he said “What pine trees?”

The light came on and I understood.

Dad never knew about the pine trees.