Most anybody in a long term relationship knows the meaning of “captive audience”. You inevitably (but joyfully!) will end up doing a fair amount of things that your spouse is more interested in than you are. This is especially true in the realm of TV watching. In my experience, if we are watching television together, the set will end up on HGTV far more than it will on the SyFy Channel. Is that fair? Hopefully you realize that is the wrong question to ask.
The right question to ask is: “Will watching this help my long term interests this evening?”, if you know what I mean, wink, wink. Just kidding. Probably a better question: “Does this have enough interesting elements that I can get something out of it?” Here lies the key to contentment. If watching TV by myself, there is zero chance I would end up on HGTV, but when watching that channel as a joint experience, I kind of like it. Marital Zen.
I have not reached that point with the Hallmark channel, which my better half mercifully agrees to watch only on her own (thank goodness, as this time of year she attempts to watch all 750 new Christmas movies). One of the shows I’m fully Zen on, though, is HGTV’s Home Town.
This show follows the professional exploits of Ben and Erin Napier as they attempt to renovate Laurel, Mississippi and environs, one house at a time. They seem genuine, at least on TV (which never lies), and their projects are tasteful. The show follows the typical HGTV/DIY formula of taking an old house that ranges somewhere from outdated to completely dilapidated and renovating the snot out of it in one hour. They seem to have an endless supply of folks in small town Mississippi with $100k to spend on renovation, plus the purchase price of the house. Everyone wants Open Concept. I don’t think anyone in the history of HGTV has ever said, “Lets ad a wall here and here. I really want to separate the kitchen and living areas and create more rooms!”
One thing I like about Home Town is that the show has a vehicular mascot. It’s a 1962 Chevrolet C10 pickup named Clint, which I was able to photograph on a trip last year. More on that a little later. The truck regularly makes appearances in episodes as they are driving to projects, or parked in the background. Ben has owned this truck since well before the show debuted in 2016, back when he was renovating houses and running his woodworking shop, unsung and unfilmed. Not a lot of information exists online about the details of this truck, such as what engine it has. If it has its original engine, it would be either a 135hp 235.5 c.i. stovebolt L6 or a 160hp 283c.i. small-block V8, with the odds favoring the six based on production numbers. Of course, it could easily have a newer 350 V8 or something else.
A glance inside reveals it has three-on-the-tree (increasing the odds it still has its original drivetrain). The truck has been lowered and received new wheels since the show began (see publicity photo above). A social media post by Ben in March this year announced that the transmission had died and he was considering whether to just repair it, or to use the occasion to do a full restomod, with a new chassis mounted under the original body. I’ve seen no word on what he ended up doing.
Our family drove to Fort Walton Beach, Florida in September last year to rent a condo for a beach vacation. Our long-scheduled trip ended up being a few days after Hurricane Ida ripped through Louisiana. As far as we could tell beforehand, I-10 along the gulf coast was open at that point post-hurricane. As it turned out, it was but there was a section down to one lane which slowed progress. The bigger problem was that power was out in much of the area between Baton Rouge and Biloxi. No power = no gas stations.
If I was not a bonehead, I would have anticipated this and gassed up in Baton Rouge. It’s not like I don’t live in hurricane territory myself with multiple experiences with region-wide power outages. Nope, I just drove on through and we ended up needing fuel right in the heart of the dead zone, thus stressing my wife out tremendously as she imagined us stuck on the side of the road, hitchhiking to the nearest town and getting picked up by an axe murderer. Not Marital Zen.
After trying multiple exits driving around with no luck, we finally found a small town with one gas station open. Police were directing traffic and monitoring the line. With the gas needle distressingly near E, we waited in line for an hour and a half (see photo above). I elected to keep the A/C off, lest we run out of gas in line, with the endorsement of my better half but it didn’t help to lower the emotional temperature in the car. Fortunately, there was no limit on gallons and the price was only a bit more than normal. With wife now calm and A/C back on, we made it to Florida with no further incident.
A few pleasant days on the beach should have given Louisiana utilities time to get more up and running, but we decided it might be wiser to avoid I-10 and take an alternate route home. The route we mapped out went through Laurel, Mississippi and as Home Town fans, we naturally had to stop and see the sights.
As usual, TV doesn’t lie. Laurel is a pleasant little town (actually small city, pop. 17k), and everyone we encountered was friendly. Of course, one stop for us was the Scotsman General Store where Ben has his woodworking shop that many scenes from the show are shot in. It’s not really a general store, as they deal mostly in nicknacks, souvenirs, some expensive hand tools, and a cool walk-in fridge with many dozens of varieties of bottled soda you can mix and match for a reasonable price. The wood shop is visible through a large window in the store and TV again told the truth: Ben was working in the shop along with a couple other guys. No TV cameras were there at the time.
My daughter, who had just turned 8 on our trip, likes watching the show. She was fascinated that the guy she knew from TV was actually in there working. Ben spotted her and gave something to one of the guys, who came out and handed it to my daughter with Ben’s greetings. It was a small spinning top, which had the strong appearance that it was made on a lathe at the shop. Needless to say, she was delighted. Also needless to say, and completely unrelated, I walked out with a couple six packs of specialty sodas.
The 62 C10 is not the only classic vehicle in the Napiers’ stable. I found an article that stated they also own a 1964 Pontiac Catalina that’s been in his family since new and a 1971 VW Beetle cabriolet. Recent episodes have shown them driving a mint 80’s era Chevy Blazer, so that’s presumably another new toy. The C10’s absence might also indicate that Ben decided on the restomod route.
Someone else’s better quality beauty shot
Home Town shows Ben and Erin working closely together fixing up houses and happily enjoying each others company. Since TV doesn’t lie, they model Marital Zen quite well. I’ll bet Ben can even watch Hallmark movies with his wife. Sometimes I’ve wondered if I could work professionally with my wife. I’m not sure that would work well, but we can at least achieve zen watching Home Town together.
photographed in Laurel, MS 9/3/2021
We had same vintage C10 on our cattle and dry land farming ranch in California’s Salinas Valley where I grew up, and my best friend in High School had another nice example in 1976.
I was particularly interested in the decal shown on the glove box door that can partially be seen in the photo inside the cab. Our ranch truck had a couple of octopuses on the glove box and my siblings and cousins were always happy to see them when we rode in the cab in elementary school. Some of us were in the bed depending on how many next generationers were riding along.
So I wonder if glove box decals were a regular aftermarket accessory or if people just saw the glove box as a convenient place to put generic decals?
Regarding “You inevitably (but joyfully!) will end up doing a fair amount of things that your spouse is more interested in than you are”, are you assuming that all the YOUs reading are men? Oops, did I type that out loud?
” are you assuming that all the YOUs reading are men?”
No, of course not! That’s why I say spouses, gender non-specific. I’m sure just as many wives do things their husbands are more interested in, especially in front of the TV set;)
My bad, it was the part about the spouse always getting their choice that had me confused.
I like the bedside step, Chevy does it on newer (HD) trucks as standard now, which makes it far easier to grab something from inside the bed, which seems to have been a problem for someone on this older truck as well.
The more HGTV you watch with your significant other, the longer the HoneyDo list gets. Just a friendly warning. And no, nothing ever gets done within half an hour.
We were passing through LeClaire, IA some years back and realized the American Pickers shop was there. So we stopped in there for a few minutes and looked at a bunch of junk and lots of newer merchandise. TV gigs can be quite lucrative if the right marketing folks are in place. And the town is a genuinely pleasant place to stop right on the banks of the Mississippi.
Great article! I’ll admit to being a sucker for these sorts of shows, at least until they’ve run too many years and become too contrived (along the lines of American Pickers). So, I do understand how they can be somewhat addictive with their highly personable hosts and seemingly real life situations that always wrap up neatly in a not-necessarily-so real life way. All the better if the host seems like a genuinely nice person who drives a cool truck.
Maybe I should start watching this one, because clearly his animal mascots are kinfolk with one of mine (Graham approves, and he’s from Mississippi too 🙂 )
Anyway, very neat catch. I’ve spent time in both Laurel, MS and Wetumpka, AL – both very nice places…although I never met anyone close to famous there.
Nice! We have a black lab.
A nice old truck .
We had a 1962 K10 longbed on the farm , it had a 235 (last year IIRC) and was a good truck that worked very hard indedd .
My Sweet loved HGTV, I don’t, none of the finished jobs look livable ~ one needs towel bars in the bathrooms and book shelves etc…
-Nate
I had a landlord years ago who drove a 1967 Chevy C10 long bed that had that same half moon bedside step. I’ve only ever seen maybe a couple of others since and always on a Chevy. Were they a rare Chevy option or an aftermarket ad on?
Ah, HDTV rankles my bones, whether watched alone or with gf. It’s full of shows about taking interesting old houses and ripping out everything that made them interesting and remuddling it with cheap but trendy stuff from Home Depot or Lowes, like a bad attempt at a restomod except for houses instead of cars. It would be like a automotive channel full of shows about how to make your vintage car look like a new one, all in a few weeks work for spare change. I’ve renovated homes and there’s always more work (and costs) than you estimated as unexpected setbacks arise.
Years ago on home renovation site, someone made a “buzzword bingo” card (pic below) to be used whilst watching HGTV (for those not familiar with Buzzword Bingo, it’s a way to pass time during boring business meetings and presentations by having employees make their own bingo cards with trendy buzzwords like “core competencies”, “pivot”, “synergies” and “disruptive”, and whoever has most of their words used in the presentation wins a prize). Anyway, I defined the HGTV buzzwords on the bingo card as follows:
“It’s dated” – It will be hip and retro in a few years
“Buyers won’t like that” – *I* don’t like that, and I have transference and projection issues
“Clean Lines” – Dull and unimaginative
“Updated” – Authentic items that belonged in this house summarily trashed in favor of generic, cheap but trendy stuff from the big-box home center
“That will have to go” – I really don’t like it
“Nice” – Boring, let’s move onto something else
“Great views” – Not a dumpster in sight
“Keep it on the list” – Isn’t a Superfund site
“Bling” – not to ever be confused with true prestige or cachet; bling is an ostentatious display of fake wealth that no actual rich person would be gauche enough to wear or be seen in.
“It’s over their budget” – Subtlety will be lost on the lowest common denominator we’re aiming at
“Thrift shop” – Let’s pretend shoddiness and poor condition are positive attributes
“Glue gun” – Even higher-tech than duct tape
“Paint” – A panacea that raises the value of every home by 15%
“Remove the bright brass” – when 99% has been removed, the remaining 1% will become a treasured, sought-after rarity. See also: clawfoot tubs, mid-century-modern plumbing or lighting fixtures, vintage appliances
“Designer” – somebody designed it. Not someone famous, or evidently talented
“A soothing/neutral color” – Realtor Beige
“It was worth it” – It’s too late to go back now
“It’s got great flow” – We tore down too many walls
“Stainless steel appliances” – At least tacky fridge magnets won’t stick, but fingerprints will
“Will it be done in time?” – 95% will be. The other 5% will take longer than the first 95%.
“Good bones” – It hasn’t been condemned
“Granite” – More specifically, Uba Tuba. We have a truckload in back.
“Hardwood floors” – Let’s make a attribute found in 95% of homes seem like a selling point
“It could work” – but it probably won’t….
“What were they thinking” – some originality instead of following the herds….
Amen, oyez, preach on!
not sure where the pic I was referring to went, let’s try again:
Aah, it’s a .jpg, it’s small, not sure why it won’t post. It was a “HGTV-O” bingo card with each of the items/buzzwords I mentioned in my earlier post in each square. Paint (an open can rather than the word) was in the center square.
Good list, I’ll have to play HGTV bingo sometime!
“I’ve renovated homes and there’s always more work (and costs) than you estimated as unexpected setbacks arise.” The unexpected setback is a common plot point in these shows. Usually, they discover a problem right before a commercial, then when the show resumes, show how they solved the problem.
And now, the original card I based that on, which I printed and rescanned so it will appear. The use of the Comic Sans font was a nice touch.
We have these sort of shows in Australia. I’m with you on the sort of changes they make. It’s like hot-rodding a house. I gave up watching them as their big-name ‘stylist’ and I disagreed on almost everything. After a while, when my wife watched them I’d go do something else. Something interesting. Like…
Nice model! Is that a plastic kit? Different year, but very similar to the subject truck.
Yep, it’s a Revell kit of the ’64. Just happened to be blue and white.
I see that lap/shoulder belts have been retrofitted to this truck — nice touch!
The 1962-63 models with the single headlights and wraparound windshield seem to be a lot less common than the 1964-66s that reverted to flatter windshields with conventional A-pillars.
I’m still fascinated that pickups went to wraparound glass and quad headlights at all, the latter feature for just a few years, considering that pickups then weren’t the lifestyle vehicles they are today.
The quad-5¾” headlamp system gave significantly improved performance over the single-per-side 7″ system, on low and high beam alike, so on working vehicles it could just as easily have been justified on that basis as on a fashion-trend rationale.
You’re correct of course, but until you came along to set the record straight, my ingrained belief was that quad sealed beams, the big thing for the 1958 model year (and some 1957s), were primarily about style.
Of course, the automakers are always looking for ways to cut costs, and reverting to single headlights was a quick and easy out.
Yup, I recall reading a road test of the new ’63 Valiant that mentioned a “refreshing return to the single headlamp”.
I have watched my share of HGTV with the Mrs and agree with what you say. I consider most of these shows like the home reno version of the automotive restomod. The one that should interest me the most is “Good Bones”, which involves a couple of women in my own fair city. But I have lost interest because every house ends up looking the same inside – one huge room. All I can think of is that every one of these places is going to get laughed at after about 25-30 years. Was anything in your house re-done in the 80s? It will be like that.
There was one (with a name I forget) done by a woman in Detroit who liked the old house stuff in old houses and was more akin to restoration/refurb than the more common “updating”.
I guess there is a truck here too. 🙂
I’m a fan of “open concept” or open layout houses but only to a certain extent. Dining rooms (separate from kitchens or living rooms) are a bit obsolete now that kitchen cabinets and appliances are designed to look nice and I want guests to see them, plus I want to be able to watch the big flat-screen TV from the eating or food preparation area, so I ripped out the walls in my house that originally separated them and made one nice open space you see when you first walk through the front door. But on HGTV all those newly open and flowing” floorplans in real life would mean you’ll never be able to sleep or work because you can hear the TV or your kids from the other end of the house, even with the volume down. When did the concept of “rooms” become unfashionable?
I made the restomod comparison too, but there’s some resemblance of new home interiors to new cars too. The next time you’re in a hardware or kitchen-renovation place take a look at the countertop laminate styles and colors. 50 shades of greige. Most of the carpeting they push is also beige (or woodgrain, real or fake, for flooring). Plumbing fixtures like sinks and bathtubs that aren’t white or occasionally off-white are hard to find. Appliances, like new cars, are any color you want as long as it’s on the greyscale. I never thought I’d miss avocado and harvest gold…
My own house was built in 1923, and it has an ingenious floorplan that (in my opinion) combines the best of the “open concept” and individual rooms.
The main floor has 2 bedrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen – all of those rooms, including the bedrooms, have at least two doors (each opening up to a different room). As a result, one can walk in circles around the house.
With the doors open, it’s a flowing floorplan, but with the doors closed you have the privacy and quiet of individual rooms.
I liken it to an old car that has some feature that makes perfect sense, but just got lost in the annals of time.
A nice advantage of such a layout is that you can heat or cool just one room at a time, by keeping the doors closed. So, too, people in one room can be less likely to disturb others in the next room over.
Separate rooms is underrated these days.
Nicole Curtis is the woman in Detroit on the show “Rehab addict”, I think she’s on DIY network now. I watched “Good Bones” for a while but they lost me when they started playing that annoying music in between scenes.
That was probably my favorite renovation show that I’ve watched. Also Restoring Galveston. My parents used to watch This Old House which I liked, too. Of course that was a much different formula from modern cable shows.
Windy City Rehab, which is one I liked for the same reason you do. And if the original details were missing she often went to building salvage for items that were period appropriate.
Cool truck. Ben has a nice beard. Otherwise I file this along with the many, many other reasons I don’t have or want a television set. Fortunately for the zenometer, neither does my spouse—especially we do not want one of today’s “smart” (lulz) televisions which watch you back.
There are worthy TV shows, and when we want to watch them we do it elsewise, on our own terms: uninterrupted; with no ads, and at no charge.
We’ve never had cable, somehow we’ve always been too busy to watch TV.
Never seen the show, but nice truck. That side step is a cool touch and the rear bumper is interesting. I personally would not go the restomod route, but it’s not my truck, and restomod probably makes for better TV.
The show is not bad, but certainly not a reason to get a TV!
Do “smart” tvs really watch you back? I’ve kind of heard that about Alexa, in that it’s microphone is never off and Amazon stores every single bit of data it collects on you with that potentially extending even to audio recording. Smart tvs have internet capability so you can run content apps. Do they do more than that?
Well, ‘watch’ maybe(?) not (yet) in a literal sense with a camera, but they do track your viewing habits and send the data to the mothership so you can be (further) monetised. I’m not having it.
This is also one of the few DIY shows that my wife and I can watch together. Although I enjoy DIY shows that go into more technical detail such as “This Old House” or the retired “New Yankee Workshop,” I appreciate Ben and Erin’s show because they really do seem genuine and passionate about what they do.
My Wife and I have watched this show, my Wife enjoys shows like this. I found the couple to be very likeable, which makes the show watchable to me. I sometimes get the feeling that I’m a bit lazy for not fixing up the old homestead, but I don’t like that it gives some women the idea that everything is easy. Sure it’s easy when you have a paid crew to do the work, At home, I’m the crew. I haven’t wanted to watch these types of shows for some time, my Wife wondered why. I asked her, “Have you ever noticed that I don’t watch car shows, and I’m a car guy?”
Excellent point, Jose. I was going to point out that the HGTV shows really don’t have anything over the similar concept car shows.
That said, I’ve now tried to watch an episode of Home Town. I got about half way through. I agree with Daniel Stern that Ben has a nice beard. And his wife seems perky, yet demanding.
Otherwise, not enough dogs in the episode I watched.
Oh, I forgot, nice truck. When I had my ’66 F250 it was easy to have conversations with anyone. Everyone seems to love original old trucks. If you want to have an affordable vehicle that will attract positive attention and comments, get an old truck.
The world always seems like a little bit happier place when there is a nice old original truck present.
100%, Jon!
Wow, looks fantastic! Nice handling of the typography. And great detailing.
Hope they can “wrangle” some “refurbishing” on the truck. Trish Yearwood had an episode of her show, many years back, where she had her dad’s old “p/u truck” revamped. She was letting her nephew drive it ; think he was a learners permit holder at the time.
Anyway, I believe the truck was a “1962 Chevy”.
I admit to watching – and enjoying Home Town and several other HGTV shows, with my wife.
That ’62 C-10 Fleetside is, to me, part of the charm of the show.
’62 was the very last year for the old Stovebolt “no-flame” 6. I was hoping maybe he’d LS it. If he’s restomodding it, well, LS ALL the things!!! I may not be original but the power, fuel economy and low maintenance makes them a no brainer!
This was smack in the middle of the wraparound windshield era for Chevy Trucks, ’63 would be the last year for that, but it was the first year for that cool hood with the dual nostrils and separate turn signals, which would continue thru ’66. Much nicer than the HUGE eyebrow hood that preceded. At least it didn’t have a unibrow like the ’60-’61 GMC hood had.
Mechanically, this was the final year of the experiment in torsion bar front suspensions. (Which ChryCo was famous for in passenger cars of the time but IIRC the trucks still had leafs and an I-beam axle). I wonder how many of these would up with coils in the front. Since it all bolts on, it wouldn’t be an impossible task.
HGTV recently did some kind of scripted Christmas show. One of those things that makes you think they need to stay in their lane.
Yes, LS all things! If he did restomod it, I imagine there would be about a 0.1% chance it would end up with anything besides an LS.
Of course, GM is back to truck torsion bars these days.
There is a show on Discovery called Restored with Brett Waterman. He restores old homes [mostly in Redlands, CA.] back to their original beauty after someone got a bright idea to modernize them. In my opinion it is the only home restoration show that is watchable. As previously noted by others, in all the other shows they all come out looking the same. Bland and boring. One question: are all the couples crying because of the horror, or are they fake crying because they have to?
That’s probably my wife’s favorite home show. Definitely one of the best ones.
Mmm, despite being on the other side of the world, Home Town is shown here on regular TV as well as HGTV, and is a favourite for my husband and I. Hubby doesn’t particularly like cars, but often says “I really like that pick up Ben drives”. Pretty sure Ben’s is a V8, going by the engine note when he was pulling an old carport over on one episode. We watch a lot of the HGTV shows, but Home Town is always our favourite as Ben & Erin seem so nice, so genuine, and we agree with their decisions a lot more often than on other similar shows. Probably the biggest eye-opener is how much house can by bought for how little money! Yes they need work, but wow, they’ve had some amazing properties over the series. It all comes down to (over) supply and (under) demand I guess – and the same goes for the Chev as a quick look online here shows they’re very uncommon and even one needing work will cost nearly the same as a new Ford Ranger…
That’s good insight on the engine note (assuming the sound wasn’t added after the fact).
I think the home prices are largely a matter of location. People pay to be where the jobs are and Mississippi is usually somewhere around #50 of 50 in most economic and social metrics (sorry MS!). I don’t know the area that well around Laurel, but I’m always surprised there are so many people there with so much money to spend fixing up their home.
Ah yes, HGTV and all those home remodel shows. Home Town is, too, a fave of my wife’s. Add the all the cooking shows on Food Channel to the list, plus The Crown, Versailles, Yellowstone and several other streamed series, and that’s how we spend most of our TV time together. As with you, I don’t mind. We have fun critiquing the home remodel results, and relaxing in my recliner with a drink in hand makes it all the more bearable. When she flits out to the grocery store to buy stuff to attempt (usually successfully!) the latest dish she saw on The Kitchen, I get to watch some of my DVR’ed car shows or the latest Mecum auction. It’s all good!
We call HGTV “The Wow Channel” because every 30 seconds somebody opens a door and goes “w-o-o-w!” It also got to the point that my wife and I just shake our heads at every instance of barn doors, subway tile and shiplap being utilized. We have agreed that the next time we renovate anything, we will not ever use any of that stuff. We do enjoy watching the shows on occasion, though we usually disagree with most of their design ideas. “Why in the world would they do THAT?” “I liked it better before!” “Oh no, not subway tile again!”