The Jeep and I

Me and Jeep, we be buds. You know, best friends, BFF’s, simpatico, brothers from different – uh – manufacturers. Trouble is, we’re just not good for each other. You’ve heard of a love : hate relationship? Well, this is a love : complete-and-total-destruction relationship.

I’ve had two Jeeps in my life (not counting the old WWII model that I drove as a youth but belonged to my father). The first was a cherry 1978 Cherokee Limited with just 155,000 easy-livin’ miles. I paid about $2700, if memory serves. My wife liked it, too — so much so, that she took it over.

Anyway, in December of 2005, I believe it was the 16th, I needed to do a little Christmas shopping, so I asked my wife if I could, perhaps, borrow my Jeep. She didn’t really want to let me, but, due to the season and the probability that I was going to be shopping for her, she finally consented. My son and I had finished our shopping in the Morrow area and were heading home by way of the Jonesboro Road toward Jonesboro from Morrow. We were in the left lane, and there was a van to our right. Just a mile or two out of Morrow, a youngster and his buddies pulled out of a side street on the right and across my path. The van saw him and began to slow down. Because, however, the van had been blocking my view to the right, I did not see him until the van slowed and dropped back, but it was too late. He was already in front of me. CRASH! One Jeep dead.

I didn’t begin looking for a replacement vehicle until the next summer. Then, after looking for several weeks, I found a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited that struck my fancy. It was literally cherry, because it was red — sort of the color of a nosebleed — but it was also cherry in the “very nice” sense. So I bought it and took it home. Over the next week or two, I put a nice receiver hitch on it and bought some other stuff to put on it, but, unfortunately, I never got the chance. On August 23, 2006, less than thirty days after I had purchased my second Jeep, I was heading to Zebulon to play a little golf, and to get there from my house, I had to cross the intersection at Highways 18 and 341. Well, I was tooling slowly across, naively believing that the green light actually granted me right-of-way, when some little Gordon co-ed, while talking (or texting) upon her cellphone, blew right threw the red light, and CRASH! Another Jeep dead.

For a while, I looked for a third Jeep, but I think that the word had spread, and they all went into hiding whenever I was out cruising, so I finally gave up and accepted that there would be no more Jeeps for me. If I ever decide to buy again, my next vehicle is going to be an ancient and beat up Chevy truck. I’m going to paint a bright and colorful target on each door and then stencil the following message above each:

“Be sure your insurance is paid up, and then go ahead!”

(clipart courtesy of http://wwiijeepparts.com)