In Memory of...

I've told a few of you. Most friends could probably guess it—it's been as imminent as Luke's showdown with Vader: the Bronco, as we've known her, is done. She has a bad ticker. Her heart's failing her. There's 8 cylinders under the hood. Right now she's operating on less than half of them. Less than 50% power. Despite that, she got me to New York.

We got the Bronco in December of 2003 after some jerk ran a red light and totaled my K5 Blazer. Initially, my dad was driving it and when I got behind the wheel, it was a bit of a treat. It was such a different riding experience. You felt the road, every crack, every bump, every imperfection. That might be bothersome to most, but I liked it. It was like driving a roller coaster, or a 2-ton go-cart. It really wasn't like any of the other cars I've driven—not my mom's Suburban, my dad's Dodge Ram, Jake's BMW, Emily's Camry, Terence's Volvo, or the Chevy Caprice I first had. Maybe the closest thing was the '69 Grand Prix my dad was rebuilding for a little bit: Lots of power, lots of noise, and a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not you'd get where you wanted to go.


Plenty of money was spent to keep it moving. The rear axle had to be completely replaced. That's a fun story. Turns out, when we bought the truck, the rear axle had been broken in a past life. But it wasn't fixed: it was patched up. I aggravated the problem when I went off-roading at the Uwharrie National Forest. Months later, after making the drive from NC State to High Point, with Jim and Sheyda in the truck, I was heading to the old high school for a football game or something. On one of the country roads, my brakes stopped working. I can't tell you how exciting that was. We got it re-patched, and that held for a while, at least until I got to Wilmington. I was heading to my apartment from campus one night, and low and behold, my brakes stop working. Reverse went, as well. And then we got a new rear axle.

We also replaced the ignition switch. Technically, it was the lock cylinder—the part you put your key in. One Friday night at NC State, me and some suitemates made a midnight run to McDonald's. When we got back, I tried to the turn the truck off. Except that the lock kept spinning around. I couldn't turn it off. I call my dad and the decision is made: I have to drive home that night and park it in the driveway until it runs out of gas. Had he not been in Georgia at the time, he could've shut it off. So I made a late night/early morning drive back home, on a full tank of gas. Thankfully, that 90-minute drive used up close to half a tank, and it was spent when I went back to Raleigh the next day. 

Then there was the time camping on Carolina Beach was ruined because the front end was about to fall off. Sixteen years of wear and tear caught up with her and kept camping from getting checked off the Wilmington bucket list. It also refused to function properly after a day trip to Raleigh. Wouldn't start, and once started, wouldn't stay started. The transmission has always banged shifting in and out of first gear, the torque converter rumbles, and she goes through a quart of oil as often as I do a gallon of milk.


Bare bones doesn't begin to describe the interior. I've never seen a floor like that: No carpet, just black...mat, I guess. Complete with a fire extinguisher in the backseat. The passenger side of the dashboard isn't really attached, and will move around like crazy when the road gets bumpy. The CD Player stopped working after a dusty trip in Uwharrie. The driver's door handle has broken off twice, and I still haven't gotten it replaced after the last time. I love the lack of power; no power locks or windows means one less thing to break. I instinctively go for a window crank now. I'm always a bit nervous about tracking dirt into a car that has actual floor upholstery.

We're at a turning point now. Do we get a new engine? Can we somehow afford a new (to us) car? The Bronco can only sit in the driveway right now, because she has a hard time maintaining 40 mph. It hurts seeing her like this. I used to park in that truck before the back windows were tinted. Mike, Zac, and I used the Bronco's jack to the take a wheel off Ben's car on April Fools Day senior year. I remember Ashley helping me clean it out after off-roading. I laugh at none of us believing that Emily was bleeding after climbing in the night before graduation (she was, and has a scar to prove it).

More than the Caprice and the Blazer, the Bronco was mine. She was my Millennium Falcon: things were constantly wrong, but there's a character there. It's undeniable. She had problems, but I saw them more as quirks. There's a strength under the hood, a desire to keep moving down the road. A lesser engine would just stop turning over. A lesser truck would've quit running before we got out of North Carolina.

But the Bronco wasn't a lesser truck.