ODE TO MY OLD CHEVY March 5, 2006.
I'm sitting here on a Sunday morning feeling a bit melancholy. Ya see, the local auto recycler has come to take my old '88 Chevy half ton away and with it goes alot of old, fond memories.
I bought her brand spankin' new in the fall of 1987. It was the ' new look ' for Chevy trucks. I remember the salesman literally rolling out the red carpet as he assured me," she'll take anything you can dish out." Did he know who he was talking to ?? !! My first haul with her was to the Cape Breton coal mines for some blacksmithing coal. Can you imagine me pulling into that black sooty yard with my shiny, candy - apple red half ton! Before I could even get out of the truck, I had a crowd of grubby, curious coal miners bombarding me with envious comments about her style. My brother Ward had helped me customize her for hauling long logs. I could chain bind three 28 foot long logs with no problems in transporting, short of grinding off six inches or so. In those days we lived a homesteaders style of life and the 4X4 was a welcome addition to the workhorse.
Then there was the 1990 trip west from coast to coast. I spent many a night sleeping on her bed, dreaming of a new life to come, in B.C. I travelled the Caribou and Coastal Mountain regions in search of an ideal place to re-settle my family. On the West Coast she took on a new image from 'Tall Timber Log Homes' to 'Coastal Cedar Creations'. I added medallion style logos to her doors and a 'wildwood headache rack' to her box with a new, cumberland green paint job. This gave her both an artistic and official look that dared any authority. " Back off !"
There wasn't as single day that the 'old girl' wasn't used for something.
She would have given me 19 years of rugged, steadfast service come this fall. There's hardly a single logging road ( including semi-deactivated ) that she hasn't low ranged her way up within the Squamish Forest District. Many of those roads today are impassable due to Forestry re-slope stablization, allowing nature to reclaim any access to these areas. I would have to say her 'glory years' were the 90's. Since the millenium it has been a costly struggle to keep her roadworthy. I figure I must have spent as much money rebuilding her in these last 5 years as I originally paid for her brand new. What is it that made me decide to finally let her go? ** Was it the look on Doug's face as he headed for cover whenever I approached him with 'old faithfull?' ** Or the loud, groaning voice that would bellow out of her when diagonally crossing a ditch? ** Or could it be the feeling that the rear half-of-her might dislodge when climbing steep terrain? As a matter of fact, one day, tired of listening to her belly-ache, I pulled the fan belt shroud out and reshaped it with the chain saw to provide more clearance for the fan blades. That quieted her down for awhile but only made me work her harder again. So yesterday I laid out a tarp in the drive by the shop, drove her onto its centre and began stripping her of any parts that might vaguely fit my new 1998 GMC pickup that I recently purchased from a Whistler Municipal auction. I wish her final resting place, rather than a crusher, could have been on one of those permanently deactivated logging roads where vandals could not reach her......... where she could sit proudly amid old growth forests and snow capped mountains for all eternity. There........I've said my 'peace.'
.....on
with the new.