What's In A Name?

    Yesterday was an exciting highpoint; my wife Donna and I, brought our baby home and parked her in the driveway.  This truck with 232,464 miles on the odometer (yeah; you read that right) still has a destiny.  Our 1984 Chevy P-30 KurbMaster started life like many of its siblings.  Surprise!  It was a FedEx truck.  The good lord only knows how many miles it traveled as its many drivers delivered packages and correspondence all over Southern Nevada.  At some point it became a plumbers truck and then a cupcake food truck and soon it will be a cookie truck. 

This is a Hybrid gas-electric FedEx van operating in New

York State. I wonder how long she'll be on the road and how

many business names will grace her flanks?

     As I stood outside and looked her over, in the Nevada June heat (101 degrees) I couldn't help but wonder; how many roads had our baby traveled?  This truck has no factory air conditioning and until it began life in its most recent capacity as a cupcake dispensary it didn't even have an after-market RV style rooftop unit.  How many of those FedEx drivers sweated in it?  Cursed traffic in it?  How many doorbells had they rung?  How many times did these drivers deliver a much awaited package, containing good news or a needed item of clothing, or home appliance, or a gift for a special person in someone's life. 

That's our baby!  All fat and happy in her new home.

     In 1984 there were no cell phones, no electronic signatures, no IPods, IPads or IPhones; in fact there were no entertainment or communication devises which began with the letter "I".   In those days anyone who was anyone carried a pager with a numeric display. If you wanted to know how to live you watched Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famous (For my younger readers: No; this was not a show about rich and famous people's condoms.) and if you wanted to make a statement you traded in your Dodge Laser, put 18 thousand dollars with it and you bought the first model year of the Nissan 300ZX. 
     In those times, FedEx along with UPS were expensive alternatives to the United States Postal Service.  Both carriers were used sparingly and strategically. 
     Today, businesses and individuals have pretty much gotten over the sticker shock associated with using parcel services and find their value and the piece of mind which comes with using them well worth the price. 
     In 1984 I had friends, Nick and Kelly Russo. Nick worked for FedEx and I wondered as I drove our baby home, if perhaps this had been his route truck.  I lost track of Nick over the years, but he and his wife Kelly were good people. 
      In her next life our soon-to-be cookie truck was put into service as a plumber's service truck.  You see; the P-30 step vans and the many trucks which owe there heritage to them, are what move America.  These trucks (in most cases) have many lives as they support our nations businesses occupations, and services. 
     I wondered as I stared at our baby girl; how many pipes, elbow fittings and plumbing related parts and pieces did she carry?  How many tools?  Did FedEx ever deliver something to this plumber?  Did our girl stare at that truck and long for the glory days when she too had the bright FedEx logo painted on her sides? 
     By the time Channa and Jazz Bender; (the most recent owners) purchased her and pressed her into service as their cupcake truck our little lady had been driven hard and put away sweaty more times than a Budweiser Clydesdale.  She was tired, droopy and the miles were showing.  Along the way the transmission and the 5.7L V8 Chevy engine were rebuilt, but other than that, she looked, and smelled like a plumbers truck. The Bender's wasted little time and spared no elbow grease bringing their P-30 back to life.  They gutted the racks and shelves needed to carry plumbing parts, cleaned her top to bottom, and replaced all that utilitarian metal with shiny new food handling apparatus. For three years, and with an "A" rating from the Clark County Health Department, Channa navigated our roads and sold her confections to countless Las Vegans.
     Cupcakes would not to be the final chapter for their little truck though, combined with the birth of a child and the sometimes changing priorities of business owners, Jazz and Channa made the difficult decision to let the cherished Cupcake truck move on.  My wife Donna and I are the lucky benefactors of their hard decision.
     Two nights ago, Donna and I laid awake trying to think of a name for this truck.  We thought it would be a cute and useful bit of marketing to have a name of some sort painted on the front quarter panels.  Obviously we will adorn it with the name of our Company, but to name the truck gives it a personality and like Donna and I it becomes a member of the My Big Fat Cookie family.  The name we told each other; "is important", and it is.  What we have come to discover though, is even without a name, this little truck already has a personality; its personality lies in its background; where it has been, the roads it has traveled, its different uses, all of the hands that have turned the steering wheel, and all the hands which will turn it in the future. Our little truck is a dream weaver, with or without a name!
     I am thankful to the Bender's.  They literally brought a 30 year old "has-been" back to life, and they made it possible for me to ride along as Donna travels her dreams.  Thank you again Channa and Jazz, we will treasure this truck, which we have christened Baby Fat and we will treat her with the same love and respect she has grown accustomed to.   

This 1957 International Metro Van, is one of Baby Fat's ancestors.
One need only look at the sliding driver's door and the roof mounted

windshield wipers to see the family resemblance.

Do you need a Big Fat Cookie?

K.