CrossRoads Farm

A Last Ride

16 May, 2005 - 11:59 am

This morning D and I took our last ride in the truck. I have to admit I cried a little then and I’m crying a lot now.

Just a few months before we met D bought a red ’89 Dodge Dakota and today D and Kurt loaded it onto a trailer and took it away. The bed will be made into a trailer for D to hitch to the Jeep and the cab will likely be sold for scrap.

To me it felt almost like a funeral.

I loved that truck. I loved seeing it outside my house when D and I were first dating. We went on our first few vacations in that truck and our friends would ride with us – either three across or in the back. Even when it was cold. I’d hang out with D and hand him tools and such while he rewired it for this or that. New fog lights. A stereo. A CB. We’d putt the canoe on it and head out for a day.

I learned to drive a stick shift in that truck. We used the unused flight line at RAF Upwood in England. And I drove it on the ‘wrong side’ of the road during D’s TDY’s.
D could fit that thing into the tiniest parking spaces in the car park in Cambridge. And we took that truck up into the mountains in Scotland and around Wales.

D drove the truck to Tucson from LA when the Air Force shipped it back to States for us. Then we had to tint the windows AZ because it never had air conditioning – but it had vinyl seats.

I lead the way in my Escort with K and kept the Dakota in my mirror when we drove to Wichita Falls, TX. And it was in TX where D put a new engine in it so we could hold on to it for a few more years. I loved seeing that truck pull into the drive way.

I lead the way again when we drove from TX to RI then VT and ME a few summers ago. And the truck did just fine other than picking up a nail in a tire in N. Carolina.

D had a new transmission put in it in RI. But the years, and the Vermont winters, finally paid their toll. First D wouldn’t let me drive it anymore because he was afraid I’d get stuck somewhere. Then it decided it didn’t like the cold any more and wouldn’t start at all. D had to buy a Jeep just after Yule and the truck has been sitting in the yard ever since.

So the decision was made to make the rear end into a trailer. It’s either that or a Vermont style lawn ornament. We will still have the truck with in a way but it won’t be the same. I’ve associated that truck with D always. And it’s hard to look out in the dooryard and not see it sitting there.

It’s mind-boggling to think of all the places we’ve gone in that Dakota.

I knew they were taking it today but when D asked if I wanted to go for one last ride I couldn't believe the sound of the words. And I have to admit that even thought the ride was only to the top of the hill on the CrossRoad and back I still cried. Just a little. I tried not to - the poor thing really is being put out of it's misery. The clutch makes terrible sounds when you switch gears. And it sounds like it will come apart at the seams. But it's the truck.

I know its silly to cry over a truck – it’s only a thing.

But I really will miss it.

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