Our Town: She's alive! Our Town: She's alive! (March 05, 2003)

by Don Kazak

Three years ago, with a lump in my throat, I said goodbye to my faithful companion of more than 25 years.

It was time to say goodbye, I was told. The best of the best had examined her carefully and said she wouldn't make it. Bad ticker.

She had taken me with her from Alaska to Boston to Texas, to Canada 12 times, and so many times to Seattle that she could pass as a resident. She would tackle mountain passes without a care, laugh at stormy weather and sing with joy out on lonely stretches of country highways, far from the madding crowd.

Big, white and kind of beautiful (to me), my 1967 Chevy pickup truck had become a sort of mobile community landmark around Palo Alto, where I work and live. About to become razor blades, or so I had thought when I got the verdict of the experts.

My truck -- I owned her from 1974 until early 2000 -- had dropped one of her six big cylinders. She could still go for quite a while rattling along on the five remaining ones, my mechanic said. But, after 300,000 miles, I felt it was time.

So I did the right thing. I donated her to a nonprofit organization in Palo Alto that accepts old cars and trucks, then gets the money for scrapping them or fixes them up and sells them.

But the old girl apparently wasn't down for the count, yet.

An official-looking "Notice of Pending Lien for Sale of Vehicle" arrived in my mailbox in mid-February. What? I read on and there it was, her license-plate number V71361, which had been burned into my DNA after all these years.

She was alive, sitting in storage at a Fremont towing company. I was getting hit up for the storage bill, already alarmingly high and growing fast. If I didn't come get her, she would be sold at auction March 24.

My initial reaction was that for the first time in my life, I needed a lawyer. No, second time, but the ACLU defended me the first time (don't ask).

I called the towing company. A pleasant young woman named Tracy explained the "lien for sale" part.

"But it's not my truck," I told her. "I gave it to a nonprofit three years ago." Tracey sighed.

"This happens all the time," she said, adding that the DMV thinks I am still the owner.

And if the lien sale goes through, she added helpfully, my credit rating would be ruined for seven years. I almost dropped the phone. Whoa.

Up to this point, it all had been somewhat amusing. "Credit rating" isn't.

So I called the Palo Alto nonprofit and talked to the guy who handles the car-donation program.

All the DMV paperwork was done correctly, he told me. Someone at the DMV screwed up at the back end.

I was trying to do the right thing, and my credit rating was suddenly at risk because someone at the DMV got a brain cramp?

All of this got worked out, in due time, and my credit rating wasn't ruined. Heck, I would have driven over the bridge and opened up my checkbook to settle the storage charges, as a last resort.

But that got me thinking: I could see her again....

I envisioned her sitting in Fremont, woebegone and abandoned by some unthinking fool, to be tagged by the CHP and towed into storage. What a fate for an old girl who deserved better. (I know, I know, but forget the earlier razor-blades reference.) And I still had the key to her heart, uh, ignition.

The old girl never let me down but once, and it wasn't her fault. I had a new water pump installed, and driving back from Seattle one summer the new pump let go in a big way at speed, ruining a few other things. It was the only time she was towed. The mechanic in Palo Alto messed up in installing the new water pump, the mechanic in Medford, Ore., told me.

I told this story to my present faithful companion, a Jeep Wrangler.

She was not amused. Ah, jealousy.

Don Kazak is the Weekly's senior staff writer. He can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.