roo moves in
goodbye, old friend
I get all misty and sentimental about old trucks, so I’ll miss the old Rodeo.
The thing about trucks and trucky SUVs is that they age so well. With their rugged, purpose-built styling, as they get older and beat up, they simply look like they’ve lived the life and served the mission they were built for. Old trucks develop character and an unpretentious honesty of function as the paint fades and dents accumulate. When passenger cars reach this stage, they just look shabby.
So there’s a soft spot in my heart for all of the trucks that have passed through my life: my beloved GMC Jimmy that I drove for 14 years, the Dodge Durango, the pickup that we used for deliveries at the print shop, and our first Rodeo.
We’ve now bid farewell to our second Isuzu Rodeo. We bought it used and kept it for nine years. It was fifteen years old. In all that time, there was only once when it failed to start, and that was because Somebody left hatch open overnight and the battery died.
I’m a little sad to turn over the keys and the title as we move on to something newer and more efficient. It feels like I just sold the dog. MSL reminds me that cars don’t have souls, but that’s hard to believe in something that’s been as faithful and obedient as the Rodeo, so I’ll miss it and I’m sorry that it’s gone. When I watched MSL drive it up the driveway in the fading afternoon light for the last time, I thought, “that’s still a nice old truck. We should keep it.” If only we had a little more room behind the back fence.
On the positive side, it was time for something newer that we hope to get another fifteen good years out of. In the middle of the first snowstorm of the year, we went back to the local Subaru dealer and drove a Forester for the second time and bought it. We’d driven a couple of other cars from other manufacturers, but it was the Subie that we liked the best: a good mix of utility, safety, economy and comfort at a price point that we could handle.
Every Subaru on the planet could use about 30 more horsepower, but with the fresh snow on the roads we were able to get a great feel for its capability. I powerslid around one corner and when I pointed the nose forward and punched the gas it settled right into line and all four wheels clawed for traction until MSL said “Christopher” rather sharply and so I backed off and played with the radio, instead.
It will be MSL’s car, and its first task today will be to take me to buy some jumper cables so that I can get my Jeep started and go buy a new battery for it. Damn thing. On one hand, I wonder if they would have given us a smokin’ deal on a second Subie, but on the other hand, I don’t think my heart could take losing two trucks in one day.
