She was my first, but I'm starting to see the light

We've been together a long time. We've covered a lot of ground together. I wasn't sure our relationship would last this long. Family and friends tell me I need to move on. But it's not that easy.

When we met, I'd only been in California a few months. She helped me get through my first long hot summer in the Mojave. We've been together ever since that July day in 1995. I was only 29 then. And, well, she was my first.

She was the first, and only, car I've ever bought new.

Well, actually she's a truck. A 1995 Dodge Dakota.

I traded in a car I loved, a 1988 Honda Prelude, for her. But the Honda didn't adapt too well to life in Southern California. Someone punched the lock and stole some stuff out of it. But that wasn't enough to jilt her. The real reason for the breakup was that she didn't come equipped with air conditioning. That hadn't been an issue when I was in college in Corvallis. It wasn't even much of a problem during summers in Eastern Oregon. It certainly was not a problem on the Oregon Coast. But in the Mojave, where, if memory serves, every day in July that summer was hotter than 110 degrees, it was a different story. No air conditioning was definitely a problem.

So I traded her in. I decided to get a pickup, because I was a long way from home, family and friends and didn't know many people in town yet. My dad always had pickups I could borrow. I had a Toyota pickup part of the time through college. I might need a truck in California.

As it turned out in the nearly 14 years since, I haven't really needed a truck all that often. But I still have her, and she's taken good care of me over the years. There have been a few bangs and scrapes with inanimate objects. And one little fender bender when I couldn't quite manage the clutch and brake fast enough at a stoplight. Not bad for nearly a decade and a half.

When I moved back to Oregon in 2005 I thought maybe that might be our last summer together. But there was really no room in the budget for a car payment, so we've stayed together. The relationship was strained when gas got up in the $4 a gallon territory. When I first bought her I could fill her up for about $15. At one point last year it cost about $75. That kept both of us close to home on weekends.

The truth is, she doesn't get all the attention she deserves because money has been tight. The new tires she got late last year weren't really in the budget either. But she and I were both glad she had them when she we needed to navigate snowy roads in December in and around Portland and Salem. The guy at Les Schwab warned me that the brakes were showing wear too, but I knew I couldn't afford that bill with Christmas coming.

But we may not be able to wait any longer. A couple of warning lights popped up on the dash yesterday. The ABS and brake lights are on, glowing steady, and I can feel the mushiness in the brakes. I am nursing them all I can, but I know there is a trip to the brake shop in my immediate future.

Tires, brakes. That's stuff that need to be replaced from time to time. But that's not the only trouble she's seen lately. Last year after watching my daughter play in the state golf tournament she refused to start. Her battery cracked and the acid damaged the cables and some parts in the engine compartment. She had to be towed to a repair shop. It was the second time she'd been in for repairs since we got to Oregon. She needs other work too. She needs shocks. The windshield has a nasty crack. She leaks oil.

And the odometer reads more than 130,000 miles. Not bad, given her age. But I'm not certain how many miles she really has left.

I never thought she'd carry me this far. Or this long. She's been a loyal and trusted companion. I'll miss her when she's gone. And I'll miss not having car payments. But I won't miss the repair bills. I guess I know where my tax refund is going this year.

Some touch-and-goes are touchier than others

I saw this video earlier today (first posted on a site called LiveLeak.com) and it made me glad I wasn't on this plane. But it did remind me of a hairy takeoff several years ago from Ontario International Airport.

That particular adventure was on a Southwest Airlines flight. I was traveling with three coworkers up to Sacramento to help our sister paper in Marysville cover a flood. We were like the relief workers, after they had all been working days around the clock.

One of the people in our little quartet hated to fly. As the son of a pilot, I was trying to convince him that flying was no big deal. The weather, however, made our takeoff a very big, nearly very bad, deal.

I had never felt a plane turn sideways as soon at the wheels lost contact with the ground, but I did that evening. I'm glad I don't have video of that little adventure to see just how much like this German landing it really was.

The only other time I got nervous on a flight a couple of years ago this month coming into Portland International Airport.

I wrote something about that landing a couple of years ago in another venue, but here's how I described that little adventure.

Portland... was in the midst of a squall. The wind was obviously kicking up pretty good, because that MD-80 was tossed around.... We were bucking and bouncing and slipping and banging all the way through the final approach. The passengers seemed to handle it pretty well, but you know the turbulence is bad when you are sitting in the back of the plane and you can see the front of the cabin bouncing and gyrating around.

After we reached the terminal, when everyone was in the rush to hurry up and wait in the aisle, I asked one of the flight attendants one of those stupid "Here's your
sign" sort of questions.

Me: So, is it windy here?

Blonde flight attendant: Yea, there's quite a storm out there. It's been like that all day.

Me: I thought that landing seemed a little rougher than normal.

Flight attendant: Yea, it thought I was going to get sick there for a minute.

It does not bode well when your flight attendant admits queasiness on landing.

On both occasions, I had far less harrowing travels than the folks who were coming into Hamburg on Saturday. Here's one account of what happened. Good thing the pilot on the Airbus didn't lose his cool, or his lunch.