Man builds old truck just like his father's His passion for a replica didn't die through the years BY JAMIE LAMPROS_ Standard-Examiner correspondent MARRIOTT-SLATERVILLE Reed Holmes vividly remembers sitting for hours in his father's brand-new 1956 two-ton Ford F-600 truck. "I was 6 years old when he brought it home. I would sit inside the truck and pretend I was driving it," he said. "I would stay there for hours and hours." His father, Orville "Pete" Holmes, was a hay contractor, hauling hay out of the dry farms in Southern Idaho. During his many trips to Idaho and back, he would let Reed sit in the middle and shift the truck. "As I got a little older I got to drive it out in the fields, even though I wasn't old enough to drive and could barely touch the brakes," Holmes said. "Sometimes the truck would lurch forward and lose part of the load. Dad would say some words Mom never heard." It was only nine years later that Pete died of what doctors called farmer's lung. He was 61. Reed was only 15. "Basically his lungs were affected by all the hay dust but I also think he just worked himself to death," Holmes said. Eventually Holmes' mother had to put the truck up for sale. Holmes said it was hard for him because it meant that his father was really gone. "He cried for three days straight," said Reed's sister in-law, Dixie Holmes. "He related that truck to his dad. I don't think anyone realized how much it meant to him." Holmes went on with life, getting an education, meeting and marrying his wife, Brenda, and raising three daughters. But the memory of his father's truck never faded. "He was always keeping an eye out for that truck, but about 10 years ago, he decided to get real serious," Dixie said. "He went everywhere looking for that truck but he always came up with loose ends." Holmes even offered to buy one owner a new truck if he would sell his 1956 truck to him. The owner wouldn't budge. "The older I got, the more determined I got. I started doing the math and realized that Dad was 52 years old when he bought the truck. Since I am now 52 myself I decided this was the year to get it done so I decided to settle on buying a truck and making an exact replica," Holmes said. "I finally found one in West Point. After doing some research, I found out it had spent its last productive decade on a farm in Slaterville only miles from my home." For three months, Holmes worked on restoring the truck, which was rusty from the inside-out. He made sure every little detail matched his father's truck. "He built it specific for his needs and I wanted it to be exact," Holmes said. "I went searching for a picture and would go to my brothers' and sisters' homes and dig through their photographs for hours. They probably thought I was some kind of a picture freak." Finally, pictures of the truck were found and Holmes was able to match everything right down to the license plates. "He had a Utah plate and an Idaho plate and I was able to find the same years of those plates," he said. "There were also three minor details that I missed, so if it weren't for the pictures I wouldn't have ever known about them." One thing that had bothered Holmes was the fact that the truck he purchased had a wave in the back of the bed, but when he looked at the photos of his dad's truck, to his amazement, he found the same flaw. Last week, the family had a get-together and Dixie called and offered to give Holmes and his wife a ride. "She told me that Reed had to deliver a car and she was going to follow him and they would just meet us there. We didn't think anything about it because Reed owns a body shop and he's always delivering cars," Dixie said. "He kept calling us to see if everyone was at the party and as soon as we were he came driving up in that truck." Holmes said that night the lunar eclipse was in full view. "I guess all the stars had lined up for a perfect night," he said. Holmes hadn't told anyone he found the truck, let alone he had been working on it for three months. "I don't know how he kept it from all of us," Dixie said. "We all went out and spent about an hour looking at all of the details. He even filled up the lunch box with Idaho Spud candy bars like his father used to do. He would always bring them home to the kids and they thought the only place you could get them was in Idaho." Holmes said he is thrilled to have brought back to life such a wonderful memory of his father. He's even able to park it right out front of his old home where he grew up. "It's parked right where he used to park it every day. This is a tribute to him and I know if he were here he wouldn't even be able to tell the difference," he said. "But I'm still looking for the original. I don't think I'll ever stop looking."