Goose is our pick-em-up truck. 89 Chevy Cheyene with a topper. Raised from the dead courtesy of Lidel and Jesse Pritchard, two fellers from Orangeburg who put him together from scrap parts. Bearing over 200, 000 miles, I bought him for a friendly $400 spring before last and he runs remarkably well when he runs. This month has been a doozy for old goose. In the last 3 weeks he has needed a new under-the-clutch ignition switch, a postitive battery cable ( we found it pinched in half mysteriously) and yesterday it threw a tire rod. At the time Michael Trent and I figured that he was done for, and we had him towed off to Mike Garage (best mechanic in the world) for a sad prognosis. We put on our mourning clothes. Lucky for us the prognosis isnt fatal. I keep waiting for this truck to die, and it keeps on goin, which is great beacuse we are broke. We decided this morning to keep a blog about the truck and to keep it alive as long as we can so that we can laugh about it someday.
I bought Goose with money i bummed from my dad. I was proud to drive it around saying, "My daddy bought it for me", like a rich girl in BMW. Jesse and Gina gave me my first lesson driving manual transmission, but Michael Trent put it the danger time, teaching me to drive it around town before he went back to NYC. That was May 2006. My drivers test was a solo drive in the rain from Savanah, GA where i dropped him off at the air port. Thats as far south as Goose has ever gone since. When i got home, i realized i had my first car problem... a leaky master cylinder (clutch not brakes). No hydraulic pressurre, no gear shifting power. Kind of a dangerous issue... Jesse and Lidel live Johns Island and its a ways out in the country. The issue bugged me for a coupla months before my friend Yummy told me about Mike, a fantastic mechanic who fixed Goos up for a messely 60 bucks.
One of the stipulations of the trucks purchase from Jesse was that i would avoid driving it any further than there was someone around to rescue me. Also, I was to understand that the car was rigged together and that oil-lube mechanics would always have something smart to say about the car and they would wanna charge me ridiculous amounts of money to fix the cars many "idiosyncracies". This has proved to be true.. Only Michael Trent or Jesse has clearence to deal with Goose. The thing doesnt even have a dip stick, for petes sake.
Goose has only left the county one other time, Northbound to Myrtle Beach, last October when i took Michael to the Airport to go back to NYC. The moon was full, we were on the outs. I was in tears most of the way. We recorded a cover of Sin City in a Myrtle Beach motel room, and then we said good bye. That was it. Me and Goose went back to Charleston and we didnt see Michael Trent for a very long time. Not until spring came around again. Drove the truck to the air port to get him, and thats when the slave cylinder began to leak.....
