Blast from the Past #2

July 27, 2005

Ode to the Brown Beast

King of Resilience

(At least, I hope so)

Cursed be the blockhead that twisted the oil cap too
lightly,

The Brown Beast lost precious blood on the first run
of his long journey

Clanking its death rattle into Tok, Alaska,
the rider of the Brown Beast was alarmed to 
receive the news from a twelve year old with braces
that the Brown Beast would be lucky to make it to
Anchorage...

the Brown Beast would need bypass surgery, if not a
transplant...

"It's got an old heart, and old hearts get tired," 
said the shaman grandfather of the boy.

The boy offered to buy the Brown Beast, if the rider
cared to sell...

Fear not! 

The Brown Beast rattled and rolled its way out of Tok,

determined to make its way to the City of Muck.

The death rattle wound down to an occasional clank on
slowing to a walk and stop, and the rider was
reassured, somewhat.

The Brown Beast made its way to the city and comes to
life when called upon to do its duty.

But the need for a doctor is imminent, if not
immediate...

Will the Brown Beast ride again, valiantly to the end
of the road, holding out for the Carnival?

Or is it a terminal case?

Either way it sucks that my emergency fund is needed,
oh... immediately.

At least I had a place to crash...

Montgomery

I still miss the Beast, that was one mighty rig.  It started out as the Big Brown Beast, then the Brown Beast, and then just the Beast - a 1985 Forerunner painted milk chocolate brown that was not on the color palette of Toyota, and NOBODY had a truck like it.  It was a 4 cylinder manual and I finally learned to drive a stick shift in the Winter in Alaska in that Beast.  

It had no get up and go, and could go no faster than 60 mph with the pedal to the metal, and after that happened, the Beast smoked and clanked with some loose widget, causing me many anxiety attacks - but that sucker lasted for that year.  No small feat, I drove all over Alaska, Washington, Oregon then to Colorado then to California, then everywhere there.  The Beast mastered some primitive highways in Alaska - never got a flat once, not even when going to McCarthy - gaining and losing elevation as the slowest vehicle on the mountain roads - even I could feel the strain of that old, compromised engine going up and down mountain roads, and salty air and maniac drivers along the California coast where the unwritten minimum speed limit is 75 mph.  

I doubt I will ever love a vehicle like I did the Beast.  It died not long after I got back from the trip, and it broke my heart to sell it to a mechanic's girlfriend.  It was kind of cool in a sad, nostalgic way to see the Beast resurrected with a new engine.  I tried to follow once, but it was going too fast and that's when I realized the new engine was a 6 cylinder. It was no longer my truck.