Jeep

 Well, that didn't take long.  The jeep is gone.

It was Bob's pride and joy, and a vital part of WWII history.  The 1942 Willys.

Bob bought it, derelict and sitting in a barn, in December 1979.  He putzed around with it for the next 15 years, and then finally it went to stay about two years at a restorer's.

We had a lot of fun in that beast.  Sometimes we'd just take it out for a drive.  It's been to a lot of parades, Bob in his WWII kit, me as Rosie the Riveter.  One time for an FSU parade, Bob had to be a parade marshal so I got to drive it with our local astronaut Norm Thagard as my passenger.  At various other parades we would load it up with WWII veterans.  Bob's favorite part was in the display area afterwards, when the vets would come up and lovingly touch it, like someone seeing an old hound dog they thought was long gone, and tell us their stories.  Heck - even my mother.  Post WWII when she was in Japan with my father, she could check a Jeep out of the motor pool if she and her friends wanted to drive into Tokyo (I can just see my mother, in her early 20's, a farm girl from Illinois, driving a Jeep in Japan).

One time, we went to dinner after a parade, and when we came out, there were four vets sitting in it, laughing and swapping stories.  Rather than look embarrassed for sitting in someone's car when we came out, they handed us a camera and asked us to take their picture.

After Bob died, Robert and Amanda asked me to keep the jeep.  That was Uncle Bob's legacy.  Maybe we would all ride in it in a parade.  They could pass it down to their kids, and maybe someday to their grandkids.  Of course, because of Covid there were no parades for two years.  They got involved in other things.  The jeep has just been sitting in the barn.  I at least kept a tarp over it (cardinals like to roost in there, and I didn't want it spattered) but I never drove it (it actually takes a lot of muscle - no power steering or brakes).  The kids got on with their lives.  They rarely come to Tallahassee, and never go down as far as the barn to look at it.  Their kids - Dane and Zeke - have shown no interest.  Robert and Amanda don't have the interest, time, storage, or money to maintain a vehicle that's now 84 years old.

I've been feeling increasingly guilty over the years as it's been slowly deteriorating.  Yes - it's a unique vehicle.  Even part of my identity "why yes - that's a WWII Willys jeep under that tarp."  It's a legacy of Bob's.  But honestly - it's also a white elephant, something that must be stored and maintained.

Perhaps it's because I'm now wearing Bob's ring that I found the courage to grit my teeth and make the call.  Letting the jeep slowly rust away is not the way to show respect to Bob's memory.  Fortunately - it's not going to some stranger.  There's a man a couple of towns away, Russell Deese, who has made his living for forty years restoring and selling military vehicles.  He's worked on this jeep before.  He and Bob were friends.  I just wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly.  I emailed him on Friday evening - and Sunday afternoon he was here with the trailer.  We talked about Bob (he even came into the house to admire Bob's models).

Then came the moment when I teared up. He asked me "how would you feel about this going into a museum? We could put a plaque with Bob's name on it."  Apparently there are plans to create a military museum in Tallahassee, and Russell is on the board.  If things go according to plan, and the jeep goes in, it will be restored and cared for and I can go see it.  If not - it will go to a collector who will maintain it properly.  That is what I really want, to honor Bob.

Does it hurt to give it up?  Hell,yeah.  We bought that jeep 46 years ago.  It's always been around.  Now the barn feels like a big empty cavern.  And I'm no longer a woman who owns a WWII jeep.  But it also feels good to let go of the guilt, to not let something that was important to Bob simply rust away.  His legacy will go on.