Saying Goodbye to an Ol’ Friend

Somethings have been with you so long that they’re no longer things… but have been transformed into beings, and sometimes, into a very part of you.

We’ve got a relatively new truck, only 2.5 years old, bought new, very much still in it’s youth of life.  And then there’s my Jeep.

I bought (I use that phrase losely because it really means, my parents bought…) my Jeep in 1994. It was the first new vehicle I’d ever owned, and I cherished it.  15 years later, 235,000 miles later — I still own that Jeep, and it still runs. In fact, that Jeep runs in my veins.

Oh, she’s old now, and beat down. But most of what I’ve accomplished in life, the trips I’ve taken, the things I’ve seen, the dates I’ve

gone on, even many of the nights I’ve slept — my Jeep’s been present for.  She’s been a good part of my life; and I’ve never doubted owning her, never regretted it, and because of her, only have good things to say about the Jeep brand.

I don’t know why I kept her this long.  I mean, from the standpoint of our “buy new” “maximize your indebtedness” “own the latest thing” world.  I should have bought another new vehicle long ago.  But, being somewhat practical and pragmatic, I guess, it just always made sense to stay with her.  I’d add up the year… other than routine maintenance and insurance, I put… (fill in dollar amount)… usually under $300 in a year.  Let’s see, that’s a monthly car payment of $25. Yep! Stay with her.

And so I did.

But when I got married, I married into a Honda Accord that was only a

couple years old, power this and that, and working air conditioning, too!  Oh, boy.  And though we

quickly dumped that car for, once again, a $25/mo car payment… after Wil was born, and the move to Buffalo (a four-season area with sometimes huge amounts of snow) I really again began assessing or re-assessing the Jeep.

I mean, I’ve always known the day for her retirement would come.  Like any good friend (or even man’s best friend), we try not to think too much on that, even when we see her slowing down, losing a bit of her youthful playfulness and luster. We just respect her age, and what she’s accomplished, and we allow her the adjustments she’s made, the slowing down… and in only in the deepest corner of our brain do we wonder when she will slow to the ultimate stop.

In 2006, we bought the truck — a Dodge Ram Megacab — it’s huge; it functions with the room of a minivan, the benefits of a truck.  Melodia had said to me that summer, that she really just wanted a vehicle with air-conditioning, and that a new vehicle would be nice.

When I came home from the dealership with the truck, I thought she’d be all smiles… yes, honey, we have air-conditioning… but nope, for some reason she just didn’t appreciate this oversized, two-parking space requiring, semi-truck turning radius enabled truck.  I was flabberghasted.

But a few weeks later, I emerged from the doghouse, and was allowed to sleep on the couch. Within a month, I managed to make it back to the bedroom; and Melodia’s grown to “appreciate” the truck.

The truck served another important function — beside being just the 2nd new vehicle in life for each of us, and a new vehicle for our family to safely, reliably, predicably utilize — it afforded the Jeep her much-needed down-time, the beginning of her easing into retirement.

The truck began racking up the miles, and the Jeep added substantially less per year than in her previous years.  She became the “2nd vehicle”… you know, the one no one drives until the 1st vehicle just isn’t available and one cannot wait for it to become so.

And as the 2nd vehicle, she’s spent the last 2.5 years continuing to serve faithfully — even as we’ve wondered to an even greater extent just when she might reach her end. But practicality and pragmatism continued to win out, and her monthly cost has remained $25 per month; so her full retirement seemed destined to be the day she stopped on

her own, rather than the day we pulled the plug.

During this time, Jeep released a new Wrangler, a four-door

model that takes it’s classic vehicle to “family” level.  I fell in love with it instantly, as a boy who sees a puppy in the window.  Ah, now that could be a new best friend.  But I have a two-and-a-half year old one in my truck; is it fair to buy a new pup?

I wasn’t the only one who fell for this though.  It was easy for me; I was a Jeep owner; I’d had a good experience; I knew I wanted to replace her some day with a Jeep.  And of course, in all these choices, I was desperately avoiding the dreaded mini-van (I mean seriously, just castrate me if you want me to buy a mini-van… it’s the same thing).

No, Melodia fell in love with it, too.  So I made sure she test drove it.  And for two years, everyone we’ve passed on the road has barked at us as we’ve gone by, called to us like a yelping pup.

But new puppies cost, and they have vet bills and shots, and the like, and my old vet… she lays quietly on the rug, disease free, and almost immune after so long. But again, with a family, could I afford to let her wind to her end?  Or did I need to replace her before then; to be sure that her passing didn’t bring the family grief?

I wrestled and wrestled with that. And she sat and sat in the parking lot, being driven once or twice every couple of weeks, as I favored the new truck… I really love this truck, love it like I first loved that Jeep…

Well, today I decided it was time to let her go, to find a suitable retirement home for her, and to bring home a new pup — one that, if the ol’ girl is any indication, I will continue to do what few others these days seem to do… buy a new vehicle, and stay with her, stay with her a good long time. She’s got 42 miles on the odometer, and I’m wondering, will we together see the day when she, too, has 235, 000 miles on it?

And this experience is of course shared, and has to be — after all, I have a truck, a truck that Melodia doesn’t want to drive… and she wants something to drive… she does… so my ol’ girl needs to retire, and be replaced, and not necessarily for me to make memories with some new pup, but for my wife (and perhaps with me in the passenger seat) to forge her own memories with a Jeep.  I knew it would be hard to let my special Jeep go… I’m a romantic and nostalgic, too, so I knew that – but I wasn’t expecting how to

ugh it’d be to watch someone else sleep with the new pup on her lap. Still, it is as it needs to be.

Having a new Jeep in the family is just what I need; but I also need the time to let go of the old one; and what better way to do that than watching someone else enjoy a new one?

My ol’ girl?  I’m searching for her retirement home now.  We’ve previously given a car to BOCES, the Board of Education’s Cooperative System offering trade classes to high school students at multiple locations throughout our area.  One of their teaching trades is in mechanics, and they’re always thankful for car donations that they can use in their learn-by-doing classrooms, allowing kids hands-on tinkering in the trade.

So this is the retirement home the ol’ girl is destined for, if they’ll take her.  A place where she can go and have her parts slowly disassembled, clean, and put back together again… like one long massage.  Somehow, that just seems fitting.  And it seems right that she, who gave so much to me, will still be giving until she slows to her ultimate stop.  In the next month or two, she’ll be leaving me… 15 years… I was in college at Point Loma with her; in a sense, she still connects me to that place, to those youthful days — even though we’ve both grown so much older.

But as my favorite poet, Robert Frost, once wrote, “Nothing gold can stay….”

We may have no more new memories ahead of us together, but that neither negates nor devalues all the ones that have come before.  We will always have those. And in the end, that’s fitting, because in life, that’s really all one can rack up and hold onto — memories; money, toys, tools, clothes – it all rots… but memories don’t rot; and that’s what I have of this forest green, 1994 Jeep Cheroke, shining in the San Diego sun as I cruise up Ocean Beach Blvd staring out the open window at an endless sea of waves, the air thick with salty ocean…  and that’s where she’ll always stay with me and I with her, even now, as I let her go… goodbye ol’ friend… may your tires have enough rubber to meet the miles still ahead. I will miss you.