Fixer Upper

This is a Sunday story – no politics today.  Just a story about aging – the truck, that is, not us!!

Pick-em-up

For decades I always had two vehicles.  One was a “personal” vehicle, usually a Jeep.  The other was a “transportation” vehicle, one I could use to haul kids to track practices or cross country meets.  There was a long line of those vehicles, starting with a VW Bus, the old “hippie van” back in the 1980’s.  Then there was a 15 Passenger Dodge Van, two Suburban’s, and finally a GMC Yukon.  

But I retired from coaching in 2017.  We kept the Yukon for another couple of years, as Jenn and I tried the “camper” lifestyle.  That Yukon was great for hauling our camper and good for long trips with the dogs (then, two or three).  It went all the way to Florida multiple times, even out to Colorado and New Mexico as well.

But by 2019 Jenn was doing a lot of finding lost dogs.  And while even the five-foot trap would fit in the Yukon, we ended up needing something more substantial to haul all the  equipment required to do the job right.  So we sold the Yukon, and bought ourselves a 2011 Chevy Silverado; a pick-em-up truck.

By 2020 in the middle of the Covid pandemic, we had five dogs.  And while some might try, we knew five dogs in the camper was far more work than fun.  So we sold the camper, and became a two vehicle family, the Jeep and the Chevy.  The Jeep finally “died” in 2026 (for that story, The End of the Jeep) and we bought a Buick Envision, a modern 2018 “grocery-getter” that’s actually fun to drive.  That’s the “fleet” in the driveway right now, the Envision and the Chevy.

Older Folks

The Chevy runs great (knock on wood), even with over 150,000 miles on it.  But it’s fifteen years old. The nemesis of Chevy trucks is rust.  Ours looked pretty good, except for around the back wheel wells. There the rust was eating its way through the side panels.  So this workhorse started looking like an old nag.

We decided we still needed a truck, and went to a local body shop to get an idea how we could fix it up.  The body guy clearly thought they had a “ringer”.  As he went over the truck you could see the dollar signs ringing up in his head.  When he blew through the book value of the whole vehicle ($11,000 at best) he tried to justify it this way:  “You know, some older folks don’t want a new car.  They are comfortable with what they have, and spend the money to fix it up.”  Clearly, in his eyes, we were those “older folks”.  With that, us “old folks” will not be going back to his shop for any work, ever.

So “J and M” “old body” repairs (Jenn and Marty) went to work.

Face Lift

For around $500 we could make the truck look a lot better.  It wouldn’t stop the aging process, but it could make the truck respectable, back to the strong workhorse vehicle it is.  And, just because the animal analogy is there, the repairs are so much better than just “lipstick on a pig”.  

The first step was to get the old running boards off, and install brand new ones.  Actually, the driver’s side board was already off, crashing down with me standing on it at a Lancaster gas station.  But that turned out to be a pretty easy job, stripping the old equipment, some rusted solid, then replacing it with brand new.  

Then there was the real issue – the rust.  With wire brushes, sand paper, and even tin snips, we were able to clear all the rusted “debris” from around the wheel wells.  The goal:  get down to bare metal, that wasn’t “diseased”.  Then there was coatings of “rust preventing” paint.  The advertising says the coating would “chemically alter” the rust, and make the metal “immune” to further deterioration.  Hopefully, better than “lipstick on a pig”.  

Sporty

And finally, we installed what are called “fender flares”.  They’re plastic add-ons that go around the wheel well.  It makes the truck look “sporty”, but in our case, it covered the fact that the top of the wheel well was gone.  We had to get creative in attaching the flare – normally it would screw into part of the side panel, but that structure was already gone to rust.  So we used “fancy bolts” through the wheel well to fix it to the side.  

So our pickup got a face lift (or more like a tummy tuck).  With fancy flares and new running boards, we hope we can gain a couple more years of use without driving a “junker”.  The rust will surely return, but we hope not too soon.  

‘Cause you know, those “old folks” can spend enough money to buy a new/old truck.  

But we don’t want to.

The Sunday Story Series

2021

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21

2022

• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22
• Waterproof Paper – 5/8/22
• Origin Stories – 5/22/22
• Origin Stories – Part Two 5/29/22
• Back at State – 6/5/22
• Out in the Country – 6/19/22
• Pataskala Downs – 7/4/22
• Car Stories I – 7/24/22
• Car Stories II  – 7/31/22
• Old Man Experience – 8/7/22
• Cross Country Camp – 8/14/22
• New to the Pack – 8/21/22
• Car Stories III – The Bus – 8/28/22
• A Day in the Life – 9/4/22
• Stupid Human Tricks – 9/18/22

2023

• Fair or Foul – 2/26/23
• Immigrant Story – 3/12/23
• Busy Season – 5/15/23
• Of Jeeps and Bucks – 5/28/23
• A Pole Vault Story  -6/11/23
• End of an Era – 6/25/23
• Paybacks – 7/2/23
• Graying in Pataskala – 7/17/23
• Being a Goat – 7/23/23
• Toy Truck – 8/20/23
• Medical Terms – 8/27/23
• Missing Margaritaville – 9/3/23
• The McGowan – 9/10/23
• Who’s Watching – 10/22/23
• The Saturday Before – 10/29/23
• A Tale of Turkey, and Dogs – 11/26/23
• Bruno’s Story – 12/3/23
• Out in the Country – 12/10/23
• Christmas Eve – 12/24/23

2024

• Rube Goldberg – 1/12/24
• Our Pataskala Kroger’s – 2/5/24
• A Sad, Sad, Dog – 2/11/24
• Singing in the Tornado – 3/3/24
• Your Safe Spot – 3/17/24
• Easter Dawn – 3/31/24
• Swarms – 4/14/24
• Lowest Common Denominator – 4/28/24
• Seniors – 5/12/24
• Season’s Over – 6/22/24
• Camp Morning – 6/30/24
• Jeeping – 7/7/24
• How Mondo Won the Gold and Started a Dog Fight (almost) – 8/6/24
• Fifty Years of the McGowan – 9/8/24
• A Walk in the Woods – 10/22/24
• Smokin – 12/6/24
• Coal for Christmas 12/16/24
• Provenance – 12/22/24

2025

• Lost and Found – 2/22/25
• Catching Cars – 3/2/25
• PV Mentor – 3/31/25
• Dogs, Jeeps, Fireworks and Beer Coolers 7/6/25
• It’s About Time – 7/27-25
• Gas War – 11/30/25

2026

• The End of My Nose – 1/18/26
• The End of the Jeep – 1/25/26
• Fat Chipmunk – 2/15/26
• A Flash of Unity – 2/23/26
• Lessons Learned – 4/12/26
• Blue Sky Rain – 5/10/26
• A Union Dog House – 8/2/26
• Thinking Outside the Can – 8/9/26
• Selling an Era – 9/6/26
• Fixer-Upper – 10/4/26