Ode to a Truck

Wednesday, I took my travel companion on its last trip, from which it didn't come home with me. I took it for a drive the day before, to Kentland, and basked in the setting sun on our return. But I knew then that our time together was drawing to a close.

Was it just a truck?

I don't think so. In early summer of 2014, we began traveling together, just as my business began to expand across the state. For nine years, and over 160,000 miles, we traversed every corner of the state on backroads, highways, and across field and pasture. It protected me in a few collisions, got me out of several sticky situations, pulled buddies or their brothers out of the mud and snow.

It hauled my junk, and about everyone else's junk, including those who mocked me for having it in the first place. It traveled snow and ice-covered roads like a champ and withstood the fury of wind and driving rain and hail like a rock. On the farm, it emptied the barn of a few hundred bales, pull stubborn stumps and fence posts, along with long stretches of fence, from rows. And load after load after load of brush.

Together, we built a business that reached nearly every county in the state, and a few other states as well. It portaged kayaks, provided a platform to watch fireworks, and occasionally enjoyed a vacation. It traveled each of the state byways it helped to put on the map and was responsible for two-thirds of the 240 National Register nomination projects completed across Indiana. It was the instrument playing Country, Blues, Jazz, Folk, and Classical music that became the backdrop for long trips. And it provided the same safe passage for many a co-workers and friends. Oh the conversations that were had in that truck!

Age had crept up on us both. I didn't have gray hair and it didn't have rust on our first adventure together. But it was time. I didn't think it would be this tough, but there was a lot of emotion on Wednesday afternoon as I placed my hand on the front of the hood one last time and said goodbye. It was awfully good to me, like a trusted steed. Fare thee well old friend.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe it was...just a truck, being a truck.