Love at First Sight

         Like a cancer it spread through her. We would fix one thing and something else would break down, until we just couldn’t afford to fix her any more. I tried to sell her, but my heart wasn’t in it. So with tears filling my eyes I cleaned out the glove box and bid her farewell. I gripped the steering wheel as we pulled her out behind the trees; all the miles and memories flashing through my mind.          
I was working at a local horse barn during the week and playing in an all-girl band on the weekends. My VW had died quite a while ago and I needed a vehicle of my own. Dad loved to shop for pickups and was glad to help when I asked.
         The first pickup he brought was...well...not exactly what I was looking for. It was red and it had four wheels; it was a grain bin on wheels...it was a Dodge. Enough said.
         The second pickup Dad brought for me to look at was a 1971 red and white Chevy Cheyenne Super. She was pleasing to the eye and when I got in and started her up, wow. That big block 400 roared to life and the dual exhaust just blew my mind. What a ride. I was in love. Oh boy, was I in love.
         Driving home that evening I held my head high and was grinning from ear to ear. With my arm resting through the open window, I was in heaven. Bet I looked like an idiot, but I didn’t care. There was no need to look at any more pickups, didn’t need to or want to.
         Dad went with me to talk to the bank about taking out a loan to buy her. They wanted $1400 and would fix the rocker panel and a hole in the corner of the cab. I had to let her go for a few days while they did the work, but it was worth the wait. 
         She had around 72,000 on her and I was the third owner, but boy was I proud of her. She had fancy white door panels with simulated wood grain strips, white Nogahide seats with black and white hounds tooth cloth and a white headliner. The steering wheel was black, as was the dash board. The dash and doors were red. The black carpet was worn but clean. I kept her washed and waxed; I didn’t see the dents and dings she had gotten along her road to me. In my eyes she was perfect.
         She became my main outfit, well, my only outfit. A stereo 8-track player and speakers were the first must have. Later on I added a couple dashboard speakers. There wasn’t much room for passengers after I added a bass canon. I drove one to three hundred miles a weekend for 8 years while with the band. Even paid off the bank in eleven months with the money I made playing music.
         I was playing in an all-girl band called Wind Song the spring I bought her. We traveled all the way to Medora, North Dakota to play for two weeks in the Little Missouri Saloon. Located on the edge of the Badlands of North Dakota near the Montana border, Medora’s claim to fame was the cabin Teddy Roosevelt was born in. 
The first week of June we loaded up a camper, put a trailer with the band equipment on behind and away we went. It was a bit chilly, but two of us slept in a pup tent while the rest slept in the camper.
         One New Years Eve I drove home on black ice after we had played for a dance in Atkinson. I barely made it over the via-dock and wouldn’t have made it through the Long Pine Hills if it weren’t for the one strip of gravel down the middle of the highway.
         She hauled kids and horses to 4-H meetings, horse shows, and to Grand Island to the State 4-H Horse Show. She pulled a trailer like a dream and the kids loved staying in the camper.
My fiancée and I took her to Thurman, Iowa to the Wabaunsee Hills Country Music Festival and sold caps and t-shirts. (That was right after my sow-riding mishap. See “Old Sows, Hogs and Piglets.”)
         There was the time my cousin and I took my mare down to Upland, Nebraska. The Poco didn’t know it but she had a date with Jim Eyed Jack. It was snowing and a mess when we left, but cleared up nice. We stayed over night and bid Poco farewell and headed home. We had such good time.
         Weezie and Jessi, my blue heelers, rode shotgun. They loved to ride in the pickup and were with me most of the time. Sometimes I would put a ball cap and sun glasses on Weezie and drive through town. People would wave and then whip their heads back around to look again at the guy with the big nose sitting in the middle.
         Then I left the band and she had to earn a living. She became a ranch pickup. She then became the fence fixing, pasture-checking, hay fielding, calving, harrowing, and everything else pickup. To use an old cowboy saying “She got used hard and put up wet.”
         The memories flooded my mind as I parked her for the last time. A tear made its way down my cheek and fell onto the steering wheel. Good-bye old friend, it has been quite a ride.