All Hail the Pickup Truck!
(Maine's Official Vehicle); Pickup trucks are country-and-western songs on wheels. No wonder they strum the heartstrings of Mainers.
By James R. Babb
To tweak that famous line from Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin's 1825 foodie classic, The Physiology of Taste, "tell me what you drive, and I shall tell you what you are." A gray Accord or Camry says you read Consumer Reports, listen to NPR, and contribute faithfully to your IRA. A red Corvette says you read Playboy and are one comb-over away from hair transplants. A parti-colored twenty-year-old Volvo wagon suggests a familiarity with tofu, Birkenstocks, and contra dancing. A shiny new SUV suggests a familiarity with middle-school soccer, an unfamiliarity with unpaved roads, and a determination not to lose a right-of-way dispute with an erratically driven Cadillac from Massachusetts.
