Red Chevy pickup a real cherry

CRANSTON, R.I. — For Vinny Calise, it was love at first sight.

"I fell in love with this truck in the showroom," he said of his Flame Red 1990 Chevrolet Silverado Z71 Sportside 4WD with Onyx Black detailing.

He drove it out of Norwood Chevrolet (now Balise Chevrolet) on Post Road in Warwick and has babied it ever since. The truck was his daily drive when he lived in North Scituate and worked as a meat cutter at the former Almacs supermarket in town. It has always been garaged and has only 225,000 miles on the clock.

The flame red is striking set against the black on the lower part of the vehicle. So, too, is the bold, black stripe across the tailgate with CHEVROLET spelled out in gold.

Calise still has the original bill of sale, showing that it cost $19,452. "It was fully loaded, power windows, power steering, air conditioning," he said. And the truck is largely original — "original color, original rims."

Also original is the reddish interior with its Garnet Custom cloth bench seat. "You can see the wear and tear," he said.

Calise said he was a Chevrolet man, following his father, who owned 1949 and 1953 Chevrolets, although he said his father was not very interested in cars. He has owned a number of Chevys over the years, including a white 1957 Chevrolet convertible when he was in his teens.

One exception was a 1957 Ford Thunderbird with both a soft top and a hard top with porthole side window. "I raced it once at Thompson [International Motorsports Park in Thompson, Connecticut]," he said. He won a trophy, as it happens — "I was the only one in my class!"

Calise said he had worked on his truck over the years, including replacing the doors, the right rear quarter and the body ribs under the bed. "We had to take the bed off to replace the body ribs," he said. Plus, he cleaned the engine, which is in solid working shape. "I used to do a lot of my own work. Now, fuhgeddaboudit," he said laughing. "I maintain it, keep up with it."

Actually, he recalled that buying the truck had its dramatic moments, as it was in the middle of the Rhode Island financial crisis in late 1990 and early 1991. "What happened was Central Credit Union closed up and I could not get money out," he said. He added that the bank gave him a voucher so he could put a down payment on the truck, and he later got his money.

His wife, Georgia, said she was thankful that she had just paid all their bills. "Many people had no money and couldn't pay their bills," she said, adding that the late George Brigido of Brigido’s Fresh Market in North Scituate gave people food on credit. "He did the same thing during the 1978 blizzard," she said.

Calise, 73 ("I wake up every morning and think, 'Thank God I'm here today — tomorrow we don't know."), and Georgia have a married daughter and two grandsons.

And Calise keeps up with his meat cutting. A small cutting table at the rear of his garage displays various well-used, professional knives. It sits next to a meat grinder that he uses to make Italian sausages, which he stores in a freezer on the other side of the table.

— pelswort@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7403

On Twitter:@peterelsworth