Two of my brothers came over the other night to go fishing with Jackson, Seth, and Nic. They brought Old Blue.
Ah, the memories.
When I came back from MWSB I was in dire need of a vehicle to get me to work and back, but I was able to borrow a car from one of my sisters or the van from my parents until both of my sisters left for college again in the fall and I stayed here for college. Then, I really needed something of my own to drive.
The fire damage happened a few years later while my brothers were driving it, but other than that Old Blue hasn’t changed much. Old Blue (and various other old pickups) had been in my dad’s family for as long as I could remember and they were all still sitting out at his farmstead. I was thrilled to have the chance to drive one of Grandpa’s old pickups.4. Half of the bench seat had been chewed up by mice (on the driver’s side naturally) so I sat on a combination of towels and blankets.
5. Part of the roof had been dented badly during one of Grandpa’s projects – giving Old Blue a little bit of a haphazard look.
6. The hose to the gas tank behind the seat had, for the most part, rotted away and was held together by several rags. I did not realize this until I filled the gas tank and arrived home smelling like I had bathed in a vat of the stuff.
7. The hood had to be slammed down very hard after each battery hookup session or it would fly up while crossing railroad tracks. Not that anything like that ever happened to me. That would be far too embarrassing to admit here.
8. At stop lights I had to shift into neutral and continuously rev the engine to keep it from dying. This got me some looks, but not the good kind.
9. There were several little tricks to starting it that I will not get into here. Suffice to say that every time I did start up Old Blue a cloud of smoke would billow out behind it and sparks would fly underneath. The sparks were not too noticeable during the day when I was leaving the college, but every night after work it looked like the 4th of July.
10. The brake lines were rotten so I almost ran over an Alero when they finally did give out. Luckily, I had just enough room to swerve and fly around the corner where the new bank is now on Lincoln. I turned the engine off, jammed it into first and hoped for the best. I walked home for some brake fluid and my nice elderly neighbor gave me a ride back. Of course, the brake fluid was useless so he gave me a ride home and I was reduced to driving my parents’ (gasp) minivan. They were out of town at the time, so I called Seth who had just moved to town and had been pestering me to hang out, and he decided to play hero for me.
Of course, something like no brakes didn’t bother Seth. He just started Old Blue and took off. Took off meaning, he drove much faster than he probably should have. And, as I have now learned, Seth usually knows what he’s doing so he made it back to my house just fine.
That little episode revealed to me that driving Old Blue might not be the wisest decision that I had ever made. It did mark the beginning of a new chapter in my life, but that’s an entirely different story.
