The end of an era: A Remembrance

We are here to pay tribute to a friend that is gone, but not forgotten. Red Rover and I spent many years together and this past Friday passed on into the hands of another that hopefully will cherish and care for her as I did.

Red and I came to know each other in North Carolina. I was living with my then girlfriend and we were driving a white Nissan SE V4 4x4 pick-up and a blue Pontiac Sun Bird convertible. Liz, always being one for the style and trimmings of the "Haute Couture" thought that these vehicles were not up to the standards which we should be living. That is actually how we cam across the Beamer in the paper, went and looked at it and drove it off the lot the next day. Well, since it was a stick was a bit uppity that I got to drive it most often (she was not a big one for driving a manual, but that's another story in and of itself) so she decided that we needed something else to compliment this.

Since the BMW was leather with only a little room in the boot and I was an aspiring musician, she decided that we needed something along the lines of an SUV. Her very first suggestion was that we get a Land Rover. I on the other hand, being more frugally minded and having a much better notion of what our budget could handle, suggested that we look around the area to see what there was to offer. We spent roughly 2 weeks not finding anything that we liked. Toyotas, Nissans, Fords, Chevys... nothing piqued our interest.

Then one day we happened to be on the Mitsubishi lot in Hickory when out of the corner of my eye I saw a thing of beauty and potential sitting in the back lot. "Is that a Land Rover I see back there?" "Yes, but we just got it in today and it hasn't even been cleaned yet." "Can we take it for a ride?" And it was all downhill from there...

Red was not immidiately thrown under the hammer and saw to become her present incarnation (HA! inCARnation... Im so funny.) No, someone wanted to make sure that both cars were shiny and clean eac week so that the other preppies in the area could point us out. (If you haven't met me you likely can get the image that I am not a big one for washing one car, let alone 2 and DEFINITELY not on a weekly basis!)

No, Red's first encounter with carnage (HA! Again!) came when Dad decided to visit the same day that the GF and I were heading down to see her mother in GA. I was working in the repro shop and while I had tried to get off early so we could split town, that didn't happen. Just as I was getting out of work I get a call: "Hey, your dad just showed up at the door with his wife and camper." Oh great. "Chat with them real quick I'll be there soon." Yeah, bad idea. Can you start to see where this is going? If not, imagine a man on his 3rd wife and my GF who just didn't seem to like a person if they couldn't do anything for her together.

Long story short, get home breaking only 4 or 5 traffic laws, defuse WWIII, apologize that we weren't going to be in town to spend time with Dad and we jump in the BMW and get ready to leave. Dad starts to pull the camper out of the drive which happens to be in front of Red. All I see next is him mutely screaming and cursing in the front seat....... He had backed into the Rover. Hence the beauty mark she had by her left eye from then on.

After a nasty breakup with the NY city socialite, Red and I decided to move to AZ where we could bum room and board off of Mom for a while. It took a while to get our bearings down here but then one night as I was working in a bar the infamous Druncan Scottsman walks in and proceeds to loudly announce:

"Hey! Who's Rover is that outside?"
Mine."
"Ever take it off-road?"
"Not yet."

Thus is the true start of a very expensive love affair. We will need to have more remembrances like this in the future... So long old friend, you will be missed.