If farm trucks could talk, I’m sure they’d have great stories to tell.

I remember the first time I ever got behind the wheel of Grandpa’s beatup brown Chevy. I was excited and nervous as Gramps instructed me how to put the truck in gear. I stepped on the gas a little too hard and the truck shot forward, spinning up dirt from the back wheels.

Grandpa was wise enough to ensure my first driving lesson was in the middle of a wide open stubble field, so no buildings, people or animals were in any immediate danger.

When my brother and I were adolescents, driving became the ultimate reward. If we helped Mom around the house, or did some chores on the farm, Dad would sometimes reward us with a turn at driving his truck around the field.

Each drive was an exhilarating experience that made for many exaggerated stories at school the next day.

Eventually, Dad started letting us drive unsupervised, but only in the fields near the house. And as young boys do, we quickly became bolder. Once out of sight of the house, we’d race across the field, laughing hysterically each time we topped a hill and got that strange weightless feeling. Sometimes we’d whip donuts in the soft summerfallow, but soon learned the circular ruts were a dead giveaway when Dad was out cultivating.

When we were teenagers, the Silver Sow came to be our trusty old farm truck. The Sow, which is still sort of in action to this day, is a 1989 F-150 4x4. With peeling paint, a broken muffler and dents galore, she isn’t pretty, but she gets the job done.

(I would be remiss to write an entire column about farm trucks and not mention the Courier. The Courier was a rickety, rusty old Ford someone had abandoned in a bush on Grandpa’s farm. It rested peacefully there a long time before my brother and I resurrected it for a few weeks of horrific mechanical torture, which included substituting canola oil for transmission fluid ­­— which made the whole farm smell like buttery popcorn. Needless to say, the Courier has since been returned to the bush.)

The Silver Sow — bless her indestructable metal heart — has carried us on countless deer and gopher hunts. She’s crawled through sloughs, mud bogs and massive snow drifts. She’s even snuck us into town a time or two to visit girlfriends.

We’ve certainly had some unforgettable times in the ol’ Sow. During a bush party a few years back, some friends and I had a blast playing The Soaking Sow — a game in which contestants attempted to navigate a rough and hilly backroad while carrying a large bowl of ice-cold water in their lap. One teammate drove, the other held the bowl, and the pair who returned with the most water still in the bowl won.

Another favourite farm truck activity was to terrify visiting friends on Thrill Hill. For the full effect, you had to get a good run, then floor the truck across the field and over the lip of a very steep hill. For first-timers, it felt like the truck was dropping off the edge of the universe and high-pitched screams of terror usually followed.

A massive crack in the front windshield serves as reminder of the day we tried to blast through a half-frozen mud puddle. The ice proved a little too thick, and when the truck fell through, it ground to such a sudden halt that my forehead bashed into the windshield. It was more funny than painful.

Yes, if only the old farm truck could talk. . . .

...I’d tell her to keep quiet, because Mom and Dad would have grounded us for life if they’d known about all the crap we pulled!