If you've ever seen this truck tooling around town, it has no doubt caught your eye. I've seen it several times, and I've wondered who drives such a thing and why. It's like a rolling episode of hoarders, except that it's somehow got a method--and (this is my favorite part) it's all baseball stuff. There's equipment, signs, stickers, action figures, and even a Jar Jar Binks in a Cardinal's jersey.
Today, as I was driving down the section of Western near Bishop McGuiness, I saw the truck parked in front of one of the antique stores that line this section of Western. Intrigued (and needing something to write about) I cruised the block two or three times until I saw a man walking out of the store and toward the truck. Knowing this must be the owner, I turned back around. By the time I got my car parked, he was no longer in sight.
So, I knocked on the door to the camper, taking a chance that this guy might be a little off-center, and may not like being bothered. But the man who answered the door was not at all bothered, or even surprised, that some stranger would come knocking. He invited me in, and, still not sure what to think, I accepted his invitation.
As it turns out, Bill Patterson is not a nut job at all. He's a heat and air man who coached baseball for three decades before semi-retiring to his own heat and air business. His truck, which is a rolling expression of his love for the game he used to coach, doubles as a work truck and vacation home.
When work is busy (as it is now, with the cold weather knocking everyone's heat out), the camper is filled with the tools and equipment he needs to service HVAC systems. In fact, this is what he was doing at the antique shop.
During the summer, on the other hand, the Norman resident takes the tools out, puts the mattress back in, and travels around with his three dogs visiting ballparks and sleeping in the camper. He has traveled to every major league ballpark in the US and in Canada, and has even attended a game in Mexico City, all in this rig.
As he goes, he picks up memorabilia to add to his forty year collection.
He began this odd way of collecting when he kept an old work truck when he was coaching. He began collecting baseball related stickers, "the kind of stuff you see at Love's Country Store and places like that." Then, one day, a friend and he came across a baseball themed metal sign. He bought it, and his friend objected, asking "what are you going to do with that?" "I'm going to screw it to my truck," he said. And thus began his rolling collection.
The truck attracts attention everywhere Bill goes. People pull up next to him on the interstate to snap photos and, he says, "I just wave." He's even been chased down by Tulsa World reporter John Clanton, who followed him for miles to interview him. An avid Cardinals fan, he met his son, who is a soldier at Ft. Bragg, in St. Louis when they were in the World Series two seasons ago. They couldn't get tickets, so they parked the truck and enjoyed the atmosphere, tailgating style. They left the truck for a few minutes and returned to find it surrounded by people taking photos and even a TV crew from the St. Louis Fox affiliate, who ultimately did a two and a half minute story on him and his truck. He said he's got the internet address for the story written down somewhere, but, he says,"it's a shame, because I've never touched a computer."
Patterson notes that though he's been so many places, and during the World Series he parked his truck in crime ridden east St Louis, no one has ever stolen anything from the truck. People just love it.
Perhaps my favorite moment in the conversation was when, having told him that I too was a baseball fan, he gave the secret midwinter greeting among baseball fans frustrated with cold weather: "Pitchers and catchers in two weeks."
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| William Patterson lets me keep him from his job long enough to photograph him with his truck. |
