The Ballad of Big Red

The Year: 2000. The turn of the millennium. I was only 16 at the time. A new driver, I needed a new car. Something reliable, something safe…something I would enjoy driving would be nice too. Most of all, it needed to get me from Point A to Point B without issues. The Honda guys were kinda jerks. It was raining. All hope seemed lost.

Then, like an Oasis in the desert, Big Red appeared. Big Red was a 1998 Ford Ranger with a little over 50,000 miles on it. It had a gorgeous metallic red color, a tan interior. The V6 engine had some power, and the cab was an extended cab…big enough to hold some friends. It was love at first drive.

And the legend was born. Patrick and his little red truck. We were inseparable. For a while, I was the only friend with a truck. And many times, the extended cab meant that despite having a truck, I had the most seating space of any of my friends. So Big Red took us many places. In high school, the truck was many times parked outside of Nathan’s house, all of us hanging out in the bed of the truck…just shooting the shit and enjoying each other’s company. Big Red was good for that.

High School was also the time when Big Red set a record for number of people riding in the cab of the truck. The total was 6: three across the bench in the front, two in the jump seats in the back of the cab, facing one another knee to knee, and one sitting on their knees. Safe? Maybe not…but it was fun! I’m sure we were blasting Barney music out the window or something like that…that sounds like something we’d do…just to get a reaction out of people.

When it was time to go to college, Big Red was in tow. Actually, Big Red made moving to college rather easy. Just throw all my junk in the back of the truck! Once again, the truck became the main travelling vehicle among my group of friends. Jimmy B did not have a working car mostly, Kent had a 2 seater truck. Little Dan had a 2 seater truck. That just left me with the 4 seater truck to haul everyone around. Actually, Big Red was the vehicle of choice for our random Disneyland road trip. We were bored, so we left at 2am on a Saturday for Disneyland…4 people in the truck. Not the most comfortable way to spend 8 hours…but it was worth it to get a day of Disneyland in.

In the most recent years, Big Red was starting to get old. Up past 190,000 miles, this is to be expected. It was idling rough. The check engine light would go on and off randomly. Everyone remembers the squeaky truck days...when my truck would announce my arrival from up to a mile away. That one got fixed. Sometimes it would have issues starting. Little things, but those little things add up. Ultimately, the end of Big Red was near.

I didn’t want to hear it. Big Red was the only vehicle I had ever known. I was comfortable in it. But everyone was right. It was time for a new car. This past Saturday, the car search ended with me financing a new 2011 Mazda 3. It is a very nice car, with many bells and whistles, and is a very fun drive. But as I got into my new car, the dealer jumped into Bid Red (which I had traded in), and drove her away. The end of an era.

As I watched Big Red drive away for the last time, I remembered all the good times we had together. And I remembered what a reliable truck Big Red was. She never needed major service. She just ran and ran and ran. 195,400 miles, and still going strong; just little things starting to go wrong. She will be good to whoever ends up buying her. I do miss it, though. I miss being high up on the road, and the unlimited visibility out of it she provided. My friends and I had some good times in that truck.

While I really love my new car…I enjoy it immensely, it’s fun to drive, it’s nice having the power locks and windows and all that stuff…I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Big Red. Bon voyage, little truck! Thank you for being so reliable for so long!

We now enter the era of Little Blue (the name needs work…).