In continuing the saga of the Farley vehicles and how my husband personified them, let us pick up with where we left off in my last column.The old, injured Ford named Lizzy Ann stayed behind in Georgia when we moved to Kentucky.
It was then we began our search for a used work truck for my husband. One evening we saw an ad in The State Journal for a truck in downtown Frankfort. The price seemed right, so off we went to check it out. We arrived to see what was to become our “Darth Vader” sitting in the driveway. The owner told us that the truck had been used by the military, but as far as he knew it was in good condition. Darth Vader was totally black, of course, both inside and out. He came equipped with one and only one extra – a heater. If there ever was a simple, plain old truck, then it definitely was Darth. After a quick inspection and a little bargaining, we took Darth Vader home to our garage where my husband started him up the next morning and drove him proudly to the office. “A pretty good find for $1,000” he said, and since the odometer was broken, we just assumed the best – maybe 50,000 miles.
Looking back, I think we were sadly mistaken since we soon realized that Darth Vader’s floorboard was falling apart. I remember so well the day I saw my husband in the driveway with the seat out of that old truck, punching away as the pieces of that rotten floorboard fell to the ground. The next thing I knew he had a large piece of plywood, placing it neatly inside, securing it as best he could and then positioning the seat back on top of it. “Good as new,” he smiled and said as he hopped inside and pulled Darth back into the garage. That was in 1978, and Darth stayed around until 1988 after I finally willed our Aunt Josephine’s old 1975 Ford LTD to my husband after driving her around for a while. We cleaned and shined Darth Vader and placed an ad in The State Journal which read, “Used truck for sale. Good transportation.” It was not long before someone called and came over, accepting the price we had set at $1,100. Can you believe it? We drove a truck for more than 10 years and made a profit! So off went the happy new owner, barreling down U.S. 421, riding on a seat held only by plywood.
So now, it was on to “Ole Josie,” named for my husband’s Aunt Josephine who had parked that old, lime green Ford LTD in the garage after Uncle Wilburn passed away a few years before. She bought herself a newer, smaller car that would be easier to handle since “Ole Josie” was as big as a tank. Nevertheless, the car had only 30,000 miles on her and was offered at the low price of $2,000, just the right price to fit our budget. She was clean inside and out, and with her power steering, even I could turn her easily. The worst part was getting through the narrow streets, trying to parallel park, and getting stuck in our small garage since we had barely a foot of space on the passenger’s side, so whoever was on that side had to slide over and squeeze out on the driver’s side where there might have been a whopping two feet between Josie and my smaller Chevy Citation.
I will never forget when we made the big mistake of saying, “Josie will be perfect for our vacation to the beach this summer since she is so big and roomy.” Sure, we had plenty of room, but when her hoses and tires gave out, causing us to sit at a service garage for hours, we were not so happy. “Dry rot” was the term the attendant used as he wiped his hands on a towel before handing us the bill. There we were, several hundred miles from home, burning up in a hot garage while we waited for Josie to be repaired. Nevertheless, we made it on to the beach and back home safely, hanging on to Josie and driving her for 16 years. The part I remember most about Josie was when one of our children was learning to drive. My husband said, “Your first lesson in driving is changing a tire.” And so, they went to the garage to change Josie’s tire. I could not bear to see her struggle with that, but I would have given a hundred dollars to have seen my husband’s face as she was driving up East Main Street from downtown one evening. It seems he said to her, “Honey, don’t you think you should quit driving up on the sidewalk?” to which she replied, “Sorry Dad, I did not realize I was on the sidewalk.” Josie was so large with such a wide wheelbase that we could hit bumps and hardly feel them.
And so, it was not long before our daughter inherited my old Chevy Citation, the one with the rust spots on the back that my husband so eagerly fixed with spray paint. Even the principal at Franklin County at the time said to our daughter one day, “I know your parents, and I know they can afford something better for you to drive.” Well, she could not wait to get home and tell us what he had said, realizing that he spoke with authority, thinking we would run out and buy a new car for her the next day. However, we allowed her to suffer for a few years, realizing she would have a few fender benders, which she did, and it would not matter on an old car. However, when she became a college sophomore, we finally broke down and bought her a decent vehicle.
As for Ole Josie, well she became famous around Frankfort since she was quite unique. One could see that old lime green tank coming from a mile away, taking up most of the road, intimidating other drivers, and causing heads to turn, but not for the reasons one would hope. However, that all ended one day when much to my surprise my husband decided he had sacrificed long enough. After decades of driving old, cheap vehicles, he finally bought himself a nice new truck. As I stood there and watched him pull into the garage that day, I did not know whether to laugh or cry. Actually, I think I ended up doing both as my mind went back to 1969, back to the year when that young college boy that I so loved made a sacrifice to buy a Ford Galaxy (Lizzy Ann), putting his dream car, that GTO, on hold, choosing instead to buy a family-type car more suitable for me. And, my thoughts also drifted back to that day when he replaced the old floorboard in Darth Vader, and how we sat at that stupid garage for hours while the mechanics removed the rotted hoses and tires from Ole Josie. All of that was over now, and we were no worse for it, for you see those old cars had served their purposes, getting us around and taking him to work for all of those years. And with all the money he had saved, getting a brand new vehicle was no problem at all, nor was it a problem when I bought a new one a short time later.
Please don’t think that we have never made mistakes in our lives, for we have made many. But when we lived in Georgia years ago, we happened to attend a conference where we learned some principles that have guided us through the years. One was “Don’t ever go into debt for a depreciable item.” While we messed up royally on some of the things we were taught way back in 1974, I think we took that one to heart, and I hope that some who read this will learn that principle as well, for it certainly can save much worry and many sleepless nights. As for me, I don’t regret our decisions at all, for it has given me something to remember, something to write about and tell my grandchildren, but most of all the freedom that comes with being debt-free.