It’s a video of a dirty truck that sat for far too long getting cleaned by pressure washer. That’s all, right? Nothing too significant, just another day of work for Derek at Vice Grip Garage, cleaning the moss and slime, the mud and the funk off of a bumpside Ford. What’s so special about this video? Is it about bringing the shine back to a truck left for dead? Even with the algae rinsed off, the old Ford is still pretty rough. Is it about seeing the effects of abandonment wash away, leaving a brighter vision to start work in earnest with? I can see that. In fact, it’s the first thing I recommend when a friend of mine gets a new pet project. You clean it up and you assess the total sum of what you have. Only then can you make a good decision on what the next move is.

No, what is getting me about this video, besides just cleaning up an old truck, is what this could actually be. I’ve alluded to a white Ford F-250 that my father had when I was just barely old enough to remember anything, back when he had just gotten out of the military and had just started settling into the role of father of two boys. I sincerely doubt this is that truck. The likelihood is all but nil. But it could be. It could be the old Ford that your grandfather had on the farm, parked near the hay bales, that you played in as a kid. It could be like that old truck the fire department had off to one side of the building that you thought was cool. Like any of these revival videos, it’s not so much about what it actually is but what it was and what it could be.

Hope and nostalgia are two powerful forces. You want to believe that you can fix that old jalopy because you have an ideal vision in your head. The journey has to start somewhere. Might as well start with soap and water.