A couple of weeks ago, we were driving our car in the Cedar City neighborhood where our in-laws live. We gave a friendly wave to a nice looking retired couple walking in the street. The poor woman started to wave and then took an involuntary step back, clutching at her throat with a look of horror. The car has multiple dents, broken headlights, dangling license plates, and just one hub cap. Moreover, the birds who have nested in our yard were using it as their potty. I laughed, and told Valerie, "Our car is covered with bird poo."
I was thinking about that incident last Friday while I drove the car over Bear Valley. On the way up the hill, the odometer rolled to 190,000. What a beast. In addition to that, the Chev turned 160,000 last month. By my calculations, those two vehicles have traveled 350,000 miles in a combined 35 years of existence.
When I was a kid, in the 1970s and 1980s, "Ford" was considered to be an acronym. It stood for "Found On Road. Dead." I remember carrying a shop full of tools in every vehicle because breakdowns were not uncommon. But, something had clearly changed by the mid-1990s when our two vehicles were built (1993 and 1995). Ford and GM, at least, added something called "reliability" to their manufacturing process. I still carry tools, but I seldom need to use them. How about a new acronym? "Forget abOut the wRenches, Dude."
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