Life in the Kingdom | Due East

I head west yet again, arriving at the Burlington airport at the unholy hour of 5 a.m. carrying a one-way ticket to Billings, Montana, and an overstuffed carry-on bag; both are essential to the completion of a hastily hatched scheme that, depending on your perspective, could be seen as adventurous. Or absurd. 

It had all begun to coalesce just a week earlier, when my son Rye called to let me know he’d purchased a new-to-him truck. I hadn’t known he needed a new truck, and perhaps it’s fair to say that, strictly speaking, he didn’t. But the boy works hard, makes his own money, asks for little, and furthermore spends his days branding cattle and making hay and building fences and generally doing all manner of truck-like things. So who was I to question? Besides, it meant that I had a unique opportunity to procure his old truck: a rust-free 1997 Dodge Ram with a rare-as-hen’s-teeth five-speed manual transmission connected to Chrysler’s venerable 318 V-8 motor, which is almost as renowned for longevity as it is for intractable gutlessness. 

Now, the discerning reader could be forgiven for asking the obvious question: Did I need a new truck? The honest answer is that, no, I did not. But it would be equally honest to acknowledge that I am a sentimental old fool, and I was not about to pass up the opportunity to own my son’s old truck. Which is to say: No, I did not need a truck—but I absolutely needed this truck. 

It’s nearly 2,200 miles and 32 hours of driving from Montana to Vermont. At the moment of inspiration (“I’ll buy your old truck!” I’d blurted into the phone before I’d thought for even a second about those 32 hours, and what it would feel like to drive them in a 28-year-old pickup truck), this hadn’t seemed like an impediment, so much as an inducement. A road trip! In my son’s old truck! Just me and the highway, the miles unspooling behind me like a cast fishing line, discarded beef jerky wrappers and empty coffee cups amassing at the foot of the passenger seat. There was even a cap over the bed, a cozy nest in which to grab a few winks whenever my eyelids started sagging. 

I arrived in Billings on a sweltering afternoon, the sun a shimmering inferno in that ceaseless sky. Rye picked me up in his new ride, a 2012 Ram that, like just about everything else in Montana, seemed almost cartoonishly large in the context of my New England sense of proportion. Watching him pull to the curb behind the wheel of this behemoth, I had one of those surreal, almost out-of-body parenting moments in which you see your child as a person wholly their own, with an entire life that you understand in only the broadest of strokes. Who was this young man? And how could he possibly have emerged from the boy I knew so well? It was at once unfathomable and yet undeniable, and there was no way to reconcile the truth of it. So, I tossed my bag into the bed, hopped in, and we sped away. 

Rye had left his old (my new) truck in a nearby parking lot to await my arrival. The plan was to retrieve it and spend a couple of days camping, hiking, and eating immoderate slabs of fire-charred meat, after which I’d head east on my grand adventure. As hastily hatched schemes go, it was a reasonable enough plan, and I was feeling rather pleased about having envisaged it.

This delightful, self-satisfied feeling—one might call it hubris—remained with me for an entire half mile from the pickup spot, when I happened to notice the temperature gauge approaching the red zone, an uneasy sight that was soon accompanied by the equally unsettling odor of coolant wafting through the cab. I hadn’t even embarked on my 2,200-mile trip and already things had gone sideways. A flurry of phone calls found a mechanic willing to replace my failed water pump on short notice, and three hours later I was back in business. 

The remainder of the weekend passed as all time with my sons now passes: too quickly, and with a sense of foreboding that I can’t quite shake, always the awareness of the hours flying by as if, like a bag of potato chips, each contains so many fewer minutes than seems fair. And I think about the cruel irony of how when they were young, and I was so often exhausted by their boundless energy and unending need, those exact same hours would often feel overstuffed, full to bursting with so many more minutes than advertised, and I’d sometimes will them to pass more quickly, if only so I could have a bit of time to myself. 

As I set off for home, the sun rose higher and I rolled the windows down to let air wash through the cab. The bulk of the trip lay ahead of me, and though I knew there remained ample opportunity for things to go awry, I also somehow knew they wouldn’t. In two days’ time, I’d be crossing into Vermont, winding through corners and cresting hills so familiar to me I could probably navigate them with my eyes closed, the roadside maples swishing in the breeze, my mind addled by an elixir of fatigue, caffeine, and the sweet-musky scent of summer. I’d be missing my sons, yes, but also happy to be back in the state I know so well, with its manageably sized sky and familiar sense of proportions. Not merely a place I lived in, but a place that lived within me.    

This column was originally published in the September/October 2025 issue of Yankee.

Ben Hewitt

Born and raised in Vermont, Ben Hewitt has played several roles throughout his life, including as a homesteader, carpenter, writer, and parent. He is very grateful to his readers for their ongoing support.

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