Just finished the final act. It's stripped naked now. Nothing on it that isn't factory, except the heavy steel plate toolbox, which will be slid directly from this truck into the bed of the new one.

Nothing like putting big, huge scratches in the bed of a brand new truck to break it in.

The new rig? On it's way as I type (yes, they deliver... does save a 127-mile drive (both ways)).

But I just finished taking the license plates off, the outfit's decals off the doors, and my radio call number off the bumpers.

Now, it's just a truck. A 1997 Ford ³/₄-ton light duty, 4WD, 4.6L V8, 5-speed manual pickup, with 78,199 miles on it. Some of them pretty hard miles. Worth $7200 trade-in.

And carrying four years of memories. Four falls of sitting along roadsides and cruising dirt roads, four strutting seasons. Four hard August months. Uncounted evening and morning drives with sleeping heelers pressed against my thigh.

Quite a few days of sporting an American flag from the antenna in September.

It no longer shows the scars of having the masked heeler rip the seats open to tear out the stuffing. Of course, there are no marks to show the revenge the truck got on that heeler, either.

The living room and dining room are half filled with the gear from the cab, and the camper on the Dodge is half full of the equipment from the back. Amazing what you can jam into one rig.

Amazing what you can accumulate in four years.

It is only a shell, now. Please treat it as such.