As I mentioned in a past column, ("Cars I have known and loved"), I own a Chevy Tahoe. It is a wonderful combination of car and truck and rides better than my old Buick sedan. It has on-demand four-wheel drive, a five-link coil spring suspension and hydroformed modular frame rails.

There is a lot of new nifty sounding technology going on underneath all that sheet metal, and its nice to have to be sure, but we're still getting to know each other. I still have to think to turn on the windshield wipers.

I also own a dark green 1961 Willys Overland pickup truck. It's old and beat up, but strong and loyal and somehow ... somehow, something more. If a piece of machinery can have a soul then this truck does, for it whispers quietly and eloquently all manner of truth.

It takes me places no other vehicle can go -- not even the Tahoe.

His name is Harvey -- after his previous owner, his mechanic and the invisible Rabbit in the movie of the same name. It's certainly not a normal name for a truck. Most men name equipment, be it ship or plane or old truck, for women of note. But Harvey is not feminine. He's muscular and tough and he wants to work. He's a one-ton. Last year, when I overloaded him with a ton and a half of old brick in the bottom of our recently excavated new basement, several of the younger construction workers chuckled.

"He'll never get that thing out of there," they jeered.

Rodney, the older driver who had done the excavation, thought otherwise. He laid back in the big black seat of his Caterpillar earth mover and said, "That there's a Willys boys, day in the park for that thing. He'll be fine."

I shifted Harvey into four-wheel low and he crept out of that hole like an M1 Abrahms tank.

"Son of a ...," one of the young men remarked as we passed them.

"That's a helluva truck," said another.

Rodney smiled and nodded atop his big yellow loader.

Harvey ignored them all, grinding his way to the top of the hill, making me look like I knew what I was doing, which I didn't.

"Thank you," I said to Harvey as we turned up the alley.

The 38-year-old low range gear box whined his reply, "Anytime, sir. I'm built to serve."

He is built to serve, but he's not built for speed. Harvey's max is about 63 mph. That's down hill, with a tail wind, in thin air, with the windows up. His normal maximum cruising speed is closer to 50 mph and even then you better drop him down to 45 every so often.

This lack of modern speed makes getting out on the Interstate intimidating because the rest of the world goes flying by you on the left in a maddening rush. By refusing to join them Harvey offers a wonderful perspective on the pace of our frenetic culture.

From Harvey's cab it's clear that in the bigger scheme of things most of us are rushing right past the more meaningful moments in life. Ever forward we go -- our hands tight upon the wheel, eyes narrowed and transfixed on the asphalt or the cars before us. We sail around one another to be the first to the ramp, feeling victorious when we have put the rest of the world behind us, and frustrated when someone else has "won."

Cruising along with Harvey the breeze passes through and the head clears and you notice so many little things you hadn't before: a doorway with an old man and a child within. A garden with a row of blooming pear trees at the end. A flock of birds landing in a spring green field. You find yourself wishing everyone else would slow down just a little, if not for a moment. But the world just keeps sailing by in the passing lane.

Perhaps we pass more than each other when we're in it.

Harvey has never said too much about this behavior, but I get the feeling it upsets him. "It wasn't always this way," he once told me as a little red sedan shot by in the middle lane. But if over hurried drivers get him down, there is one thing that is sure to pick him up.

Snow.

Harvey is never happier than when it snows. His absolute favorite thing to do is load the kids up in the back with their sleds and haul them to the top of our hill on Stanley Avenue. He drops them off and putters around the long way to the bottom to pick them all up again. His wipers loosely slap the glass in rhythm and his defroster motor sings an aging tune, but he's as happy as the day he was made. When we finally come in for cocoa and a fire, Harvey sighs to a stop and his headlights cry little rivulets of water from the melting snow on his hood.

I am absolutely certain that they are tears of joy.

Late at night on such days when the children have all gone to bed Harvey often takes me for a ride to the top of the hill. He burbles quietly along past the sleeping houses as the snow floats lazily down around the street lights. We meet others at the top and sip beer and smoke cigars, as the lights of the city fade in and out of view beneath us.

Invariably someone asks what year Harvey is and I get to respond, "1961. He was made the same year I was." It makes me feel good somehow to say so.

But while we are the same age we are also different of course. For Harvey, being a machine is always no more or less than who he was created to be. And by virtue of this he is able to fulfill and carry out his mission as long as his parts will allow.

I, on the other hand, am still becoming who I am -- am still on the assembly line, and whether I like it or not, I am shaped by the influence of the world around me. In my rare and better moments I am like Harvey -- true to who I was created to be -- shaped only by my creator and willing when I am called to serve.

In my lessor ones I am something else altogether.

I love that old truck. He takes me places no other vehicle can go.