Tiny

Tiny was a giant of a man. Six-foot four. Three-hundred pounds. He was gentle and generous and raised three wonderful girls, one of whom was my mother. Tiny was my grandfather. Sadly, I never knew him. He died of an aneurysm about 4 years before I was born. The closest I ever got to him was summering every August as a boy at the cottage he bought in Rhode Island. The cottage was also named Tiny. He was gone before he could enjoy it. I think he would have been happy that his wife and daughters and grandchildren could, though.

Tiny is also a Ford F250 Super Duty truck with a 6.7 liter Power Stroke turbo diesel engine that makes 450 horsepower at 2800 RPM and 930 lb-ft of torque at 1800 RPM. He stands 81.5 inches high with the 4WD option, a full 3.5 inches taller than me. I think the FX4 off-road package adds at least another inch. He weighs in at a base curb weight of 7,264 pounds, or 3 1/2 tons more than me after a particularly indulgent holiday season, and is a touch under 21 feet long (a bit over when you add the hitch). With a max payload of 7,640 pounds and a towing capacity of 21,000 pounds he can tow any Airstream they make these days. The largest of this year’s models sports a maximum trailer capacity of 10,000 pounds and a 1,000 pound hitch weight, with propane and batteries. (This is not the one we have.) About middle of the road for Tiny. You can never have too much truck.

Tiny was a “COVID special” purchase back in 2019, when it seemed nobody was buying anything because of pandemic uncertainty. We went through the usual back-and-forth I imagine any first-time buyer of a working truck would. Ford, Ram, or Chevy/GMC? Gas or diesel? Half-ton or three-quarter-ton? Do we need a dually or four wheel drive? We did online research and watched YouTube videos. We visited dealers and went for test drives. Modern trucks are very capable and very dependable. I could sympathize with anyone who chose differently than we did. We pieced together what we wanted then watched and waited. Ultimately Kim found what we were looking for. We hated to part with our beloved and luxurious Lincoln and my low-mileage, back-to-basics Mustang. But our lives were zigging and there was no place in our future for autos.

Tiny is a beautiful truck, even now after a couple scratches and dings. He seems about as long and as wide as the 1974 Oldsmobile Regency 98 I learned to drive in. You’d probably have to stack the car three-high to reach the towering heights of Tiny, though. I don’t believe I could reach across from the driver’s seat and open the passenger door in that Olds, nor can I do it in Tiny. I can, however, wear a cowboy hat inside the truck, so it feels about the right scale to me. Kim is closer to an average sized human, though, so she tends to bandy about adjectives such as “gigantic” and “enormous” when speaking about Tiny. I like to think my truck, and the many wonderful things we can do with it, is a fitting tribute to the grandfather I never knew.

Next: a Nest you can stand up in.