Grouse Hollow Journal for January 17, 2013

Grouse Hollow Journal for January 17, 2013 by Greg Koelker

Last week a man came with a tow truck and loaded up the Jeep for what will most likely be its last big trip anywhere, in one piece at least.  I went up to where it had been parked for over a year and a half and mused about all the memories that little four-wheel drive workhorse takes with it.  

We bought our Jeep Comanche from Steve Low at Low Motors in the summer of 1986.  Ellen and her late brother Bob, came along to help pick out the color.  I was leaning toward a dark tan, but we agreed upon a silver gray.  The sticker was something like $8,900 and Steve knocked off enough that before tax it cost around 8 grand brand new.  It had a 2.5 Liter four banger, Wrangler radials, a four speed stick on the floor, cloth seats, a rear slider window, a plastic bed liner, and not much else.  No radio, no air conditioning, no electric windows . . .  It was as the saying goes, a plain jane, pretty basic transportation.  

The day I picked it up, it stopped running on Highway 35 just south of what used to be Holly's One Stop.  It was a hot, hot Saturday midday, as I walked the half mile, cussing back to Holley's to call.  There were no service people at Low's.  A salesman did come out with a pickup and tow me back to the lot.  I ended up driving home a Ford Escort loaner.  I won't repeat the language at this point although a sailor would have blushed.  It turned out that the Jeep had a defective computer and they had to order one, so by Wednesday of the next week, I had my new wheels.  

We drove that little truck out west for one trip (after I installed a radio/tape player and an aftermarket cruise).  It got 27 MPG highway at the time.  I wonder why Chrysler abandoned this particular set up in 1992.  Anyway, we used it for deer hunting, hauling wood and dirt and manure and appliances, pulling the boat to the river and up north to lake country, and we both drove it to work for years.  I drove it to UW La Crosse for three and a half years while I worked on my teaching degree.  For years, I would load up my amplifier and guitar and drive it to somewhere or other make a little music with Just Friends and later Shake Rattle and Roll.   

The Jeep and I had lots of adventures together.  One very early thirty (like 2 AM)  back in the summer that Highway 35 was torn up,  I was groggy as I left Ferryville and missed my detour turn off.  I realized it on the long straight stretch north of Ferryville that has marsh on both sides of it.  I decided to turn around, and backed up too much and the truck slipped over what little shoulder there was and went backwards down the bank.  Even four-wheel drive and a heavy load of all the band's equipment didn't help me get it out as the tires just spun and the truck slipped downward with every try.  I could see water almost to the tail lights.  I got out and flagged down a kind semi driver who dropped me by  a phone booth in town.  I called Triple A and very nice man came clear from Prairie du Chien to pull me out.  I could pay him, but he knew my band.  I dropped it off the next day.  Anyway, some of the other guys in the band had gone by the Jeep while I was in the semi and freaked out thinking I was in the drink somewhere there and came racing back to Ferryville to find a cop or a phone.  Boy, were they relieved to see me waiting by the pay phone.  On another night, Laun Braithewaite and I came upon a huge rock slide by the Lynxville dam.  Several drunken people had tried to drive over it and one lady was hysteric that all four of her tires were blown out.  An officer helped us unhook our band trailer and turn it around, so we could take a goat path over to Highway 27.   On a Saturday morning in 1990, our car wouldn't start, so Ellen and 11-year old Ben and 9-year old Mark and I squeezed into the front seat of the Jeep and took off for State Football in Madison when the Pirates made their last trip to Camp Randall.  Long trip both ways after the Pirates fell to Greenwood.

The boys drove the Jeep as their “first ride” before and when they got their licenses.  We used the Jeep as an incentive to get the boys to bring in a load of firewood.  If they loaded it up, they could drive it down to the house, unload it and they could take out into the woods or field edge to sweep the bark and debris out of the box.  It worked pretty well for awhile.  I imagine it could tell some tales that would make their mother frown.  I know they used to drive it around the farm long before they had licenses, when we weren't around.  I heard from a pal who shall remain nameless, that they used it to pull skiers around snowy fields more than once.   I remember the day I let Ben drive home from baseball practice once we were out in the country for the first time.  He was 14.  I know, I know, probably reckless on my part, but hey, I was driving a truck and tractor when I was a lot younger.  He was grinning so big and his little brother was so jealous.  It was one time I know he drove slowly.  Maybe the only time, but that is another story.  

Over the years, the back window had to have glass replaced due to flying wood chunks.  The passenger side window came off the track when Mark was in high school, and I foolishly tried to pull it back up with a pliers.  I ended up with a bag full of safety glass; the Jeep ended up with a permanently closed plastic window when we got the $200 plus estimate to repair it.  

I used to get kidded about my little truck by my friends and relatives and students with big old “real” trucks, but I would match it up against most half tons in a tug-o-war, if it had a load of wood in the box on solid ground anyway.  One December day up on our ridge by the oak stand, Ellen and I filled the box with a load of oak and hickory chunks.  I was going to haul them down, but there was snow in the  air and forecast and we had two long trees laid out side by side to cut up yet.  I backed up to them and wrapped a log chain around them and hooked it to the back bumper of the Jeep.  Once I got them sliding in low range four wheel drive, I never let my foot off the gas.  The ground was bare and frozen hard, so those logs just skidded behind me the three quarters of a mile back to the farm and parked right next to the tobacco shed.  Oh, did I mention that one was a hickory and one was an oak about 18 inches across and forty feet long?  The bumper got a little crunched; nuf said.  

Anyway, the old girl pulled out the tractor more than once when I couldn't get it up out of a ditch or off of a stump.  I once pulled the town end loader out of the ditch over in Mohawk Valley when I came upon patrol man Emmett Clements walking on the road.  He had his doubts, but we hooked a log chain on to the big implement and to the back of the Jeep and I put her in low range.  I tossed a bit of gravel, but the end loader was able to get up out of a marshy ditch.  (I had to get one of the four wheel drive axles replaced shortly thereafter, but still it got the job done.)  

Over the years, it went through six exhaust systems for reason.  At first the guys at Kmart and later Dan at Dee's Mufflers would cringe whenever they heard me drive it in.  It needed a new rear end once and one new clutch.  I had new floor boards welded in one summer.  In recent years, you had to prime the carburettor with fresh gas to get the Jeep to start, but then it was fine.  The last time it was filled up was probably in 2010, but that old gas still worked.  The ignition broke, so I installed a toggle on and off switch and a push starter button.  The radio still worked and the four wheel drive worked fine last time I used it.  Heck, while the truck had 159,000 mile on it, the tires and exhaust didn't have fifty miles on them.  Still like most of us, it was starting to rust badly and I had replaced the tailgate with a wooden gate a long time ago.  There were trees and weeds growing in the back of it last summer.  In the end, the old truck, an old friend really, was left waiting patiently behind the tobacco shed to be of some use beyond being an apartment complex for mice.  Now it will be.  You see, we donated the truck to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund.  They will see that it and/or its parts get put to good use, and we get a tax credit for $500.  It was as easy as sending an email or making a phone call.  (If you have an old car, truck, or boat, I bet you can donate it the charity of your choice by just checking out their web site or calling them.)  

Anyway, the Jeep was more than just a truck, it's been like an old, loyal friend.  It's been a part of our lives, part of our family, for the last 27 years.  We will miss it, and Ellen and I agree we'd buy a new one if Jeep ever started making them again (with air and cruise and a good stereo and power windows this time of course.) I'll leave you with this thought from the philosophy of Jeff Foxworthy, “You might be a redneck if . . .
the blue book value of your truck goes up and down
depending on how much gas it has in it.” 

Until next time, get out: the Packers left their hearts and season in San Francisco Saturday.  The team will probably look a tad different next year because of free agency and age.  Most likely they won't be able to afford Greg Jennings and his nearly $4 million paycheck.  I think Erick Walden and Cedric Benson may be back, but I feel that Donald Driver and Charles Woodson will likely retire.  They still had a fun year winning another Division Championship, beating the Bears twice, and providing some great times.  Go Pack!   Enjoy.