Today I honor two grand old dames who help make me complete: my dog and my truck, whose deaths have been greatly exaggerated. The ’78 Ford F-150 and 14-year-old Trina are both long in the tooth and piston and both recently spent time in the repair shop. Some have suggested putting both of them down, but as long as they’re both eagerly and cheerfully firing up for the next ride, the borrowed time will continue.  

After a long-overdue, overpriced $700 brake job, ol’ F-150 purred like a kitten and stopped on a dime, (which luckily turned out to be a quarter). And in her passenger seat with her head out the window and nearly-blind eyes searching the scenery, sat Trina, not purring but enjoying the air.  

If you’ll allow me, I’d like to sing a tribute to my true loves, to the tune of an old Don Williams favorite, “She’s in Love with a Rodeo Man.” A one and a two and a …“She’s tired, she misfires and she’s dented, and leaks fluids much of the time, but she idles in a customer driveway, and she’ll be there until quitting time.”

Second verse, similar to the first: “Lord, I know her life ain’t been easy; the grey snout and scars say it all; but she still is a beautiful Spaniel, in the lights of the vet clinic hall. But she won’t sit down in your pickup, and I know that you can’t hold her paw; she won’t go home with you cowboy, she’s in love with a roofing scofflaw.”   

We three dear friends were once four; sadly missed is Trina’s best friend of 12-years, big ol’ Trinity who died last year. We sure were a dream team with Trinity huddled next to me on the worn, spring-protruding seat and Trina riding shotgun gulping air. Oh, the strange-but-true adventures we had.

With “The Way We Were” playing in the background, I recall the time we stopped at a South Fork roof addition in my usual rush with darkness looming and wind howling. After half-hearted measurements, I drove briskly toward the sturdy iron gate to exit, irritated the owner hadn’t simply left it open when a strange thing didn’t happen. We weren’t slowing as I pressed the brake; in fact we were gaining speed. My entire body weight now on the pedal was having no effect as the menacing gate neared and both dogs stared at me like, “You are gonna stop, right?”

WHAM! I knocked that huge gate airborne and watched it bounce onto the dirt road in a cloud of dust. Amazed and perplexed, I looked down at a gallon jug of water exactly where my foot had been. I had been feverishly pumping plastic, fully expecting it to stop my truck. (“Memories … pressed between the brake drums of my mind …”)

One evening I parked atop the Humane Society driveway and was chatting with Jere, the shelter manager in the noisy kennel area, when I noticed an employee at the side door feverishly yelling and pointing to the driveway. I ran out and studied the open space where my truck had been — then followed the natural progression to the highway below.

I spied ol’ 150 with her nose pointing skyward from a deep barrow ditch, tailgate wrapped in mangled barbed wire. Again four wild canine eyes quizzed me judgingly. An angel apparently had been steering (he better ride with someone else before I get him killed too!) since after the 50-yard backwards freefall, the wheels had somehow turned in a 180-degree arc away from the busy highway and into the field.

Six eyes bulged with panic the time I pulled up to a stop sign and heard a deafening shotgun blast and shattering glass. I sheepishly looked for the shooter in the grassy knoll, but saw only thousands of glass shards on the floor by the door. Then I remembered the spare windshield given to me which I’d carefully positioned behind my seat. When I leaned heavily backwards to dig something from my pocket, the glass had no wiggle room and all hell broke loose. It sounded exactly like a shotgun blast.

 Twice Trinity’s big, probing nose courted disaster, once at 35 miles per hour when he nudged my shifter into reverse. If not for my cheetah-like reflexes returning back to drive position a second after hearing chirping tires, we’d have walked home. Another dark night we did walk home after I inexplicably ran out of gas only feet from the top of the hill leading to my nearby house. I coasted backwards down that long hill and pushed F-150 into deep snow before our icy walk up a steep hill. 

A citation for “abandoning vehicle obstructing roadway” was delivered to my door later, and I realized the mysterious empty tank was the never-used, spare one. Trinity had nosed the knob upward and switched tanks. Very funny, loyal hound! 

Ah, to have Trinity back for one last eye-popping ride. Even the old Ford misses that big lug; an elderly truck should never outlive one of its young.