Old Blue is gone.

  Well, a twenty-nine year legacy is gone.  We sold Aaron's 1982 Chevy truck yesterday.  It finally came to the point where Aaron decided that keeping two project vehicles was not the best of ideas.  It had been sitting at the back of Joe and Janet's property for quite some time.  The starter had gone out in downtown Fort Worth one afternoon when Joe had been driving it and it had to be towed home.  For years, now, junk has been piled in it's bed and squirrels were the ones getting the most use out of it.  Aaron always said that he wanted to keep it in case we needed it for our property (the property we sadly don't have yet).  I teased him about it, but never really wanted him to make the fateful decision.
  One Sunday, we ran into some old friends from College Hill and the subject of the truck and our general vehicle situation came up between Aaron and Jerry, a fix-er-upper fanatic.  He then, in turn, mentioned it to another fellow we once knew who mentioned it to a friend of his...long story short, the friend of a friend of a friend bought it almost sight unseen.  There really are a few people out there who can still recognize one of the good ol' boys, Old Blue.

  As I backed out of the driveway, I watched the guy who bought Old Blue from us get under him and work on getting him started again like Aaron did so many times before.  I cried as I remembered trips to the lake in Abilene in no air conditioning, windows rolled down and the radio cranked so we could hear it over the roar of wind and engine.  I thought of how James Dean-like Aaron looked driving it, with his blue corduroy coat collar flipped up just slightly around his neck.  How, when I'd hear him coming, my stomach leapt with butterflies.  I recalled the rumbling of a cranky diesel engine on cold mornings at our first apartment, Aaron bundled to the hilt with long johns, sweatshirt, coat, and baseball hat getting it ready to drive to work.  I fell in love with my man in that truck, before kids, in my twenty year old body, when Skeezix was still my best friend.  For some reason, letting the truck go has made me let my old dog go all over again.  Some of my favorite memories will always surround that 82 Chevy.