It's funny how we become attached to things. Things, not people. Sometimes it seems inanimate objects actually have personalities, and we come to view them like old friends.
      A favorite pair of shoes, those faded blue jeans that are soft as springtime, an old memento from a special date - or your car.
      In my case, it's a truck.
      It is with great sadness and melancholy that I give the news: my trusty, dusty, down-and-dirty, Git-R-Done Dodge is in hospice.
      As a matter of fact, she is going to be an organ donor, although her poor heart (also known as a motor) may not be the best candidate for transplants, and her transmission is like a bad back.
      But that truck has done it all, I tell you.
      When I first got the truck, I wrote a column about how happy I was to own a Dodge Ram. I fell in love with the late 90s/early 2000s body style, and grew up with Dodges (Daddy liked them.) She was my first truck, and I was in love.
Having owned only cars, I was thrilled to find how convenient a truck can be. You can haul just about anything you need in the bed, and the tail gate makes a great picnic table/work bench/seat. It also comes in handy for short people who ride tall horses.
      When I first got the truck, I named her Black Betty - after the song as well as after a friend of mine, Betty Proctor. Betty (the lady) did not like being singled out for public attention, but since she left this earth over a year ago I don't think she will mind my mention of her now.
      Betty (the woman) was one tough cookie -- ex military, sassy as a pepper patch, and loved animals more than she did people. Her health issues never fazed her, and she kept on ticking long after many others would have given up. A cancer survivor, she was one to admire for her stamina.
      So was Betty the truck.
      She hauled round bales of hay weighing over a half ton, and hauled horse trailers. She navigated muddy roads that most would not have tackled, but most of the time she got me through. There was that one time when she blocked a road after a fierce storm, and deputies and other county employees had to help pull me out so they could pass.
      She spun mud all over a couple of them, and I can't say I didn't get a little chuckle over that. Sorry, Walt.
      Those dirt roads took a toll on the truck. I'll never forget looking in my rear view mirror right after I'd bought her, not even having made the first payment yet - and saw my spare tire bouncing down the road. The cable that held it underneath the truck was worn out due to the rattling and wiggling caused by those ruts in the dry dirt roads.
      The dusty, wash-board rippled, teeth-rattling and bone-jarring dirt roads were bad, but sometimes the mud roads were worse. After leaving home in the morning, once I'd get to the paved roads, there would be enough mud caked underneath her chassis to plant a garden.
      Going home-same thing. I wasn't sure I wanted the county to pave the road I lived on, but I was definitely a fan of their paving the main road to my neighborhood.
      My truck doubled as a farm truck and my main mode of transportation to work. I got a little bit of ribbing from some Kiwanis Club members about being the only news reporter they ever knew to drive a truck, but hey, this IS Bulloch County, I AM a country girl, and I am quite sure there are other female news reporters out there who drive trucks.
       I learned a truck could drive over curbs like a car cannot. While my truck could not haul as many passengers in the cab as a car, it sure hauled my husband's little bass boat in the back just fine.
      Considering my friend Karen Durden Chassereau and I once hauled a Shetland pony in the back seat of her 80's model Ford Mustang, I didn't think it was so odd that we delivered a miniature colt to a friend's farm once - carrying the little fellow in the front of the truck with us.
      The baby goat my friend Nancy bought, however, destroyed my already cracked dash trying to get out. We thought he would stay in the floorboard while we ran errands after a livestock sale, but that didn't happen.
      I've spent many a spring afternoon taking naps in the truck, just hanging out while my husband Stan worked with a friend. A recent cold weekend found us involved in an outdoor event, and I slipped away to climb into the familiar coziness of my beloved truck. The short snoozes in that truck have been some of the best sleep I ever had.
      I am going to miss her. I feel as if I am saying goodbye to an old friend, and I reckon I am. Will the next truck be as cozy? As tough? Will it be able to handle cross-country searches for lost dogs and loose horses?
      We'll see. Goodbye, Black Betty. I love ya, but I gotta keep moving.

Holli Deal Bragg may be reached at 489-9414 or by e-mail at hbragg@statesboroherald.com