I shut her off in front of my office, grab some papers, come out and nothing. Tap the battery terminals and starter with a pair of pliers and the truck starts...but my radio presets were gone...so I lost all electrical power. What in the world happened and how do I fix the problem?

 

Sounds like a corroded battery terminal.

 

90%, (give or take a few) of all electrical problems are ground related...

 

Thats what it was. I took the cable off and noticed that the previous owner had done some fancy footwork when putting the new battery in the truck. It had a good sized gap between the cable and the terminal. I was afraid it could be a computer or something when the switch didn't do anything! I went ahead and cut out all the junk wires that the previous owner had run around the truck.