1981 Chevrolet C10 – Charles C.

My home is in Mokelumne Hill in Calaveras County, CA nestled in the foothills of the gold country. My niece inherited her father’s property in Tuolumne County upon his passing and I was informed there was a gold mine on the property. It was an hour away in a small town called Tuolumne. When I visited, I found the mine workings were collapsed with no head frame but there was a large boiler and compressor to run the mine. The real gold was the three square bodies on the property. There were two camper special long beds and one had a 454 in it. The real gold to me was the non-disturbed 1981 Cheyenne short bed stepside with A/C. When I inquired from my niece she said I could have it but she didn’t know where the pink slip was and it was last tagged in 2000. It took me about a year and a half of going and repairing tires, cutting trees, and moving other vehicles to get the truck down a hill with no power or brakes. When I opened the hood the entire engine bay was taken over by a pack rat and it had about 40 pounds of sticks and droppings. It took about 2 hours of power washing to clean around the engine and battery and see through the bed. The next step was going to DMV to fill out a form for a lost title. The lady at DMV said the good news is that the owner filed for a non-op and I wouldn’t have to pay back fees. The bad news is that it wasn’t in my niece’s father’s name. The clerk said it was registered to two people but couldn’t tell me their name. She gave me the form to fill out; I paid the $5 and waited for a month. When the letter came the names on the title weren’t recognized by my niece but with an internet search she texts me the owner’s name, phone number and former addresses. I called the phone number and was hoping that the truck had been sold and the bill of sale was lost. Nope, the man who answered said that the truck had been stolen in the year 2000. I inquired why DMV didn’t have report of it being stolen. He explained the truck had been stored at a family cabin in Miwok Village when he was going through a divorce and didn’t know if his wife or father in law had sold it. My hope is that he would not care about it anymore and sign over the title. He started telling stories about purchasing the truck in 1991 when he first apprenticed as a carpenter and how one of his children were almost born in it. Then I asked the important question “do you want it back” and to my dismay he said yes. Here is where the story gets really strange. After my niece gave me the truck, my wife and I moved to a different house. The information I was texted listed an address for the man that was on our street. I turned out that the trucks owner lives two houses from our new house. Eddy came a few days later and picked up the truck and had it towed next door. He still had after 26 years the pink slip. We never figured how the truck got to Tuolumne. You could say that this is the truck that got away.