It was mine! We did some kind of a vehicle shuffle, my car to Amy and when the dust settled, I got the new Jeep - with 8 miles on it! I was working at the landfill at the time, so sometimes I needed that 4 wheel drive to get up the steep hill leading to the facility. Oh how I loved that Jeep! Paul was driving a truck then - either a green Ford, or a Dodge. So we drove the Jeep whenever we went on trips, short and long. And that was often - because those Goldsmith kids were active in sports, traveling around the Hawkeye 10 Conference. When Jud was in high school, we car-pooled in a great group, including Joan Weis (Greg was still in vet school back then), and Lucy and Jim Hyde.
We had some memorable trips in the Jeep. One time Paul was driving the Jeep, and Jim was riding shotgun. Lucy, Joan and I were strapped in the back with me in the middle riding the hump. We were headed for Clarinda for a basketball game, traveling west on Highway 71 when deer (shocking I know) ran across in front of us. There was traffic around us and no way for Paul to avoid the small fawn that we hit head on. I felt it pass under my feet - below the undercarriage of the Jeep. Ick! Later we could see where the bumper was cracked and there was deer hair in the license plate. But we were pretty fortunate it didn't go over the top!
Another time Lucy was with us as we left Carroll after a hard-fought soccer match (was that the one when Coach Bob Irr got a red card and had to watch the end of the game from the team bus?) in eerie weather. A storm was a comin'! You could feel it in the air. We only got about twenty miles before the heavens opened up and it rained cats and dogs. Then the hail started. On my newish Jeep! It wasn't that tiny little insignificant hail. It was big, "sounds like somebody is hitting my Jeep with a baseball bat" hail.
I was terrified to stop and look at the SUV - fearing large dents and pits. We stopped like many people had, in Guthrie Center (yes, home of Bar-L Ranch, where lil Leslie had many a fun time at summer camp riding ponies) under a Kum N Go awning. A quick glance at the Jeep revealed its superhero exterior had successfully dodged most of the hail dents. When the hail stopped, we drove on....and right back into hail a couple miles south of Guthrie. Eventually we got home, hearing we had dodged a tornado a few miles west of our location in Guthrie. Phew! Good job trusty steed.
Fast forward to 2007. Jud graduated and our carpooling to game days were over. I wanted a smaller more fuel efficient vehicle and Paul was ready to drive the V8 Jeep full time. We traded in his Dodge pickup on a 2004 Subaru Outback for me, to be followed by a 2009 model in that year. A new love in my life - all wheel drive style!
And last summer Jud faced driving his tiny 2-door Saturn through the land of 18-wheelers to Davenport for his summer internship. My fretter began to work overtime with thoughts of him being crushed in traffic. So Jud got the Jeep and Paul too got an Outback 2010 version - all remodeled compared to mine - more of an SUV than a lil station wagon.
The Jeep now has some 120,000 miles on it. The windshield was cracked on Jud's spring break trip to Colorado and the rear end is making a painful noise. Jud is ready for his first car - to go with his first job!
So he's trading the Jeep in today for a dimpled (hail damage - you can hardly see it, but it's ironic, no?) Mazda 6, color red. It's a sad and happy day for our family. Good bye faithful friend, hello new kid. Take care of my kid like the Jeep protected our family. |
| Jud's new Mazda 6 |
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