Ode to A Truck

 Did I even think to take a picture of the truck???

This morning I took Hamish to the vet.  My plan after was to do a few chores, have lunch, and then go clean out the truck.  I was expecting to get a call from the tow company at some point to set a pickup time.

Instead I got a call to make sure I was at home because the tow truck was on the way.  I could have protested and put it off, but, to quote Lady Macbeth,"if tis done when tis done, twere well it were done quickly."  Or, in more modern terms, rip that band-aid off.

So I dashed out, cleaned it out (thank goodness out of guilt I had washed it recently), took off the license plate, then spent some time hacking at some of the underbrush to make a bit more space for the tow truck.  I tried jump starting the truck, but it wouldn't quite take, meaning that the tow truck would have to go to the back of the property where the truck was.

When they said "tow truck" I thought they meant one of those big trucks that pick up the front end of a car and drag it off.  I was not expecting the huge flatbed.  It was quite a marvel seeing the guy maneuver it back there.

It's gone.  In a few weeks, after it's sold (I donated it to the local PBS station) I'll get a receipt for tax purposes.

Truck memories.

Neither Bob nor I were ever really into cars.  If I count the mustang he got before we got married, we've had that, a Volkswagon, a Ford van, a GMC Jimmy (a real lemon), a Ford Explorer, a small Chevy pickup, a Honda CR-V, the Ford Truck, and my current Honda.  How many people can name every car they've had in the last 50 years?

When the Ford Explorer was starting to fall apart, it was time to go car shopping.  We were looking at more Explorers, or something like that, because from time to time we had to take the Jeep on a trailer to parades or shows.  But they were pretty expensive (we couldn't find a decent used one) and got pretty lousy gas mileage, and we were living out here by then with the daily 30 mile round trip commute.

One day, after doing more fruitless car shopping, we went out to dinner, and I broached a crazy idea to Bob.  I asked him how many times a week was he going to trailer that jeep, or have to make a big haul from the hardware store.   Of course - not that often.  My idea (wild for people who only bought cars when absolutely necessary) was to buy two: something smaller for everyday use, and then a truck for when we needed it (giving up the current explorer and the small Chevy truck)

It worked brilliantly, and we kept them both for 20+ years (I wrote about giving up the Honda a couple of years ago - and I still miss that car.)

The truck was there when we needed it.  He did the weekly trash haul in it, just to be using it.  We dragged the jeep to parades.  We hauled lumber in it.  We hauled building materials for the Halloween Howl down on the trail with it (where it got its only injury, a long scrape down one side, which really pissed him off).  A sweet memory was a road trip with our great nephew, Dane, when Dane was seven.  For awhile it had been a plan of Bob's Dad to have he and Bob take Dane on a road trip - just a one-day drive to go have fun.  They would go do that as soon as Dad felt better.  Sadly, that trip never happened.  Some time after he passed, Bob decided that he had unfinished business, so he took that road trip with Dane.  I can't even remember where they went, but they ate ice cream and hamburgers, and at some point saw a carnival in a parking lot and Dane went on all the rides.  Dane was fascinated by the idea of manual roll-up windows - you just turned a handle, and you could roll the windows up and down even if the truck wasn't turned on.  Bob was always glad that they took that day, that road trip, that homage to the man who couldn't be there.

Letting the truck sit there and rot, just for sentimentality, is wrong.  There are only 60,000 miles on it.  It should be used.  So it's off to it's next life.

As the flatbed headed down the drive, the truck going down it for the last time, I saw that I had forgotten to take off the front tag.

Molon Labe:  Greek for "Come and take them"

The phrase is attributed to King Leonidas I of Sparta as a defiant response to the demand by Xerxes I, king of Persia, that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

A pang for just a moment.  Should I run yelling down the drive for him to stop, to take it off the truck, to keep it? But no - let the truck carry that last cry of defiance.  If you want something that's mine, come and take it.

It needed to be done, something else that I had to let go.  But, for this afternoon, I'm going to let it hurt.  I'm drinking rum from the lovely Russian tea glass that he gave me, and scarfing down the Halloween chocolates.  Tomorrow I will soldier on.