Ride in the box....

[Rustyt1953]

Like Bam, I started first grade at 5. In England that was the mandatory age. When I came to the states, the school board, regardless of my high test scores, decided I couldn't be younger than my classmates. They put me back a year. That was the most boring, snail paced year of my life.

I had nothing to do in class but play with my brain. Maybe that's what happened.

 

[chaparrito]

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

 

[DeadAye]

Still OK here in TN - BUT, the kid has to be 12 years old and up.
I guess that makes sense to someone?

 

[Iggy]

Kinda reminds me of the story how you can pick out the experienced cowboy in the pick up truck. He's the one riding in the middle. Don't have to drive-don't have to get out to open/close the gates.

You got that right!!!

And then they put a console in the center of most trucks and high transmission hump and everything changed. Now you have to be a midge.. Excuse me, a little person to ride in the middle.

 

[ParadiseRoad]

...I've ridden in a lot of pickup beds...no worse for it...I also used to ride standing up on the seat of my aunt's '53 Buick convertible when I was really small...I'd stand right next to her...and she would hold me back with her arm if we had to stop fast...split my lip once when she didn't get her arm out there soon enough...that aunt passed away about three weeks ago...so those memories are mine alone now...

...the Subaru pickup with the seats in the back was the "BRAT"...the seats were back there to qualify it as a car for import...the tariff on trucks was much higher...I believe there were seat belts for those back seats...I think most people eventually removed the seats to actually use the small truck bed...

...I knew a bunch of guys that fancied themselves as Cowboys...they used to all jump in the back of a pickup with their lariats and race up and down rural roads lassoing mail boxes...if they got the rope around the mail box...they had to wrap the other end of the rope around a stake in a stake pocket on the bed...before the rope pulled them over the side...

...one more story...when my wife and I moved to where we live now...we didn't have a pickup truck...I was in the trucking business...so we moved most of our stuff in the back of our Kenworth tandem dump truck...on the last trip...my wife decided to ride in the back to take in the view...she sat in a large rocking chair with a microwave oven in her lap to protect it from bouncing around...I guess all was okay until we hit the gravel road for the last 2 1/2 miles...she started bouncing pretty bad...and the microwave was beating her pretty bad...I couldn't hear her over the noise of the truck...and she couldn't get up or put the microwave anywhere else...she was a little bruised by the time we got home...it's a story we laugh about now...

 

[4506517]

Anyone remember the little Subaru pickup with the seats in the bed?

The Subaru Brat.

Had two rearward facing seats. Always wanted one.

Legality of riding in the bed of a truck in NC is determined by an area's population.

 

[Absalom]

It's like it is with all stupid things we used to do.

The ones who made it without getting killed are here to brag about it and make light of it.

The ones who didn't, aren't.

I don't believe it's the law's job to protect grown-up idiots from themselves (an unfortunate trend today), but adults putting kids at risk who don't know any better is a different thing.

 

[snubbyfan]

In WV it's ok to ride in the truck bed if you're over 18.
I was giving some people a ride in my truck at a local resort. It's an access cab with jump seats in the back. My wife volunteered to ride in the box.
There was a steep side road of loose dirt and gravel. I shifted into 4wd and up we went. I looked in the rear view mirror and my wife was bouncing around and loving it. "Better than a roller coaster," she said.

 

[TX-Dennis]

I remember when I was very young - maybe 6-8 - riding on the step on the side of my Dad's stepside Ford pickup. I thought that was great fun. He drove very slowly, but it felt fast to me.

Mom, however, was not amused when I told her about the great fun I had.

 

[42chevy]

When I was a kid I rode in them plenty, but dad had a canopy with a boot to crawl where the back window would be that was very fun too

 

[ralph7]

The Subaru Brat.

Had two rearward facing seats. Always wanted one.

Legality of riding in the bed of a truck in NC is determined by an area's population.

Had one of those, so light it would just fly over mud and never got stuck.

 

[Brian41]

I did it many times as a kid too but we did stupid things too. My wife's first husband fell out of one in Vegas and was killed some years back.

A couple years ago I rode in the back of one in Wyoming mule deer hunting. It got rather cold on the road between ranches we hunted on. Second day the guide got a couple hay bales to sit on and was better.
There were just too many of us to ride in the single cab and nobody available to drive a second truck.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Just remember this boys. A ride in the box always beats "A night in the box"

 

[EQGuy]

My father had a 7 acre peach orchard. He bought a 1958 Studebaker 1/2 ton pickup to move the peaches to market in. We used to ride around the orchard sitting on the tail gate. One time my brother and two of his friends were sitting on the tail gate when the chain broke and dumped them on the ground. No one was hurt as you never drove fast in the orchard as the dust would stick to the peaches.

I remember our first trip to Yosemite my sister and I rode in the back of the truck while my Mother and Father rode in the front.

He sold the orchard and the truck became our hunting truck. I remember many a predawn cold ride in the back of that truck in the mountains on the headwaters of the Sacramento river to go deer hunting. It was not much warmer in the cab as it did not have a heater. It did not take long to discover that the best spot to sit was directly over the muffler for the heat it put out. That truck is currently parked in my driveway.

 

[kimporter]

start of summer vacation from school my grandfather,my dad and i took off to see the west,we had a new 69 GMC pickup,2 big coolers of food and softdrinks.went from central ky to montana and back,and i road in the bed of the truck the whole way,best vacation ever

 

[Alpo]

Are we all talking about the same thing, here?

The original post said the kid was in a box, in the back of the truck.

Many of the responses are about how "I rode in the box all the time", and y'all are talking about the bed.

As I read that original post, the kid was in a box, that was in the bed.

I rode in the bed of a pickup, in high school. Didn't hurt me.

I carried my kids in the bed of my pickup for years.

I see nothing wrong with riding in the bed - sitting on the deck, or on the wheel-well.

But, several years back there was a local story. Little kid. She was in a plastic wading pool, in the bed of the pickup. And somehow that plastic wading pool took flight. Pool, and little girl, landed in the highway, where she was killed by another car.

I don't think there would have been a problem, if she had just been "in the bed". But being in that pool, with all that solid surface area to catch wind. Hell, maybe his tailgate was down (story did not say whether it was up or down) and the pool bounced out. Would not have happened if it was just the kid on the bed floor.

So - if it's some little kid, in a BIG box (like, maybe, an appliance box - washer, refrigerator) - that BIG box could leave the truck bed much easier than just the kid would.

 

[TTSH]

Not a pick-up truck story but in '83, post-separation/pre-divorce and with a brand new job with lots of OT, I bought myself a brand new 300ZX coupe to replace the family car which had left with the wife. Too bad it had only two bucket seats and I had two very young kids.

Anyway, to make a long story short, the kids and I... and lots of neighbor kids... had more fun zooming around town and going places and getting ice cream cones with as many as 5 or 6 kids stuffed into the "wayback."

We laugh out loud about it today, 30-odd years later. My, how things have changed! The "PC police" would be horrified and I'd be in jail for sure for child endangerment or something even worse. But we all survived and had a great time in the old Z-car. Those were the days!

 

[ChattanoogaPhil]

Laws sterilizing life for your own good. No thanks.

 

[rwsmith]

It said something about the box......

Are we all talking about the same thing, here?

The original post said the kid was in a box, in the back of the truck.

Many of the responses are about how "I rode in the box all the time", and y'all are talking about the bed.

As I read that original post, the kid was in a box, that was in the bed.

I rode in the bed of a pickup, in high school. Didn't hurt me.

I carried my kids in the bed of my pickup for years.

I see nothing wrong with riding in the bed - sitting on the deck, or on the wheel-well.

But, several years back there was a local story. Little kid. She was in a plastic wading pool, in the bed of the pickup. And somehow that plastic wading pool took flight. Pool, and little girl, landed in the highway, where she was killed by another car.

I don't think there would have been a problem, if she had just been "in the bed". But being in that pool, with all that solid surface area to catch wind. Hell, maybe his tailgate was down (story did not say whether it was up or down) and the pool bounced out. Would not have happened if it was just the kid on the bed floor.

So - if it's some little kid, in a BIG box (like, maybe, an appliance box - washer, refrigerator) - that BIG box could leave the truck bed much easier than just the kid would.

It also said something about a fiber glass 'lid'. I don't have any Idea what composed this 'box', just pointing out the difference between then and now. We would have thought it was an adventure and if the car didn't go too fast it wouldn't blow out or toss us around. There were three kids in there so I figure it was a rather large whatever they were talking about. One of them was probably smart enough to open the lid when it got warm and stuffy.

I never liked riding on top of the wheel well if conditions were good. The ideal was to side with your back against the cab.

This is a good feeling:

Riding down a dirt road at 40-50 mph in an old F-150 trailing clouds of dust in its wake (before they put A/C in trucks (and nobody thought that it SHOULD have an A/C) between fields (watermelons on one side and corn on the other) on a hot summer day with at least three people in the car. The bench seat is obligatory, they didn't put 'bucket' seats in trucks and nobody had ever heard of a 'captain's chair' except on a ship. Both windows would be all the way down and the side vent windows turned backwards in order to funnel the hot air straight into the cab and all over you. It would be an extra if the radio was real loud on a country or pop station, preferable AM). Loud because the road and the wind are so noisy that it has to be turned up in order not to miss a beat. Add an ice cold soda and a moon pie or bag of peanuts. This has to be what heaven is like. If everybody in the world did this a couple of times a year, there wouldn't be any more wars.

 

[Brian41]

Besides the pick up bed we also sat on the tailgate of my Dad's station wagon while on fire trails by my cousin's cabin. I also remember riding on the truck of my cousin's car on those same trails. Sometimes we fell off rounding a curve but nobody ever got hurt. I don't believe though we were going very fast either.
I used to put my English Setter in the bed of my truck when the cab was full. I did have concern about her falling out so made a vee with a rope to each side of the bed. She could move around some but not get too near the side or fall out. I believe it illegal now to let a dog ride in the bed.