A 100 years ago I would have had a horse to get around on, maybe even a team of horses to do some work, but I am sure I would have had a favorite hay burner among them.

 He would have been special dependable beast with a personality simpatico with my worldview, like a human pal with really big teeth. An old nag named Red that would have hauled myself and my gear to the river: a fly fishing horse. Imagine casting huge caddis flies from the saddle at dusk, now that is Cowboy.

             This, though, is 2006 and my 1989 Isuzu trooper was about as close to a loyal horse as I’m going to get.

 This fall I had to replace my fishing truck, after sixteen seasons in the sun ;Old Whitey was retired to pasture. I sold it to a guy from England who seemed pretty happy about the whole deal, he wasn’t much of a negotiator but I walked him through the counter offer process. As he drove off in Whitey I had a feeling the two of them had made a good match.

            Getting rid of the Trooper was a big deal for me because when it comes to vehicles I’m miserably cheap. The whole idea of throwing money into an asset that is in fiscal freefall from the moment you buy it makes me queasy.

 I’ve heard it said that you are what you drive. Until this fall, that would have made me a dusty, over the hill Troutbum with a slight oil leak. These are same people that say that, over time you begin to look like your pet or is your spouse. Here’s the truth, you are NOT what you drive and it’s the pet that begins to look like its owner. Woof

The beautiful thing about Whitey was it was perfectly suited to my image of understated poverty; this is a good thing in the guiding business. No one wants to hire a guide that has more money than they do, clients like to feel the fee they pay is making the poor bugger’s trailer payment: “and here’s few extra dollars for some corn liquor”. Whitey was wonderful prop she had great stage presence when meeting clients for the first time. There’s no business like fishing show business.

Whitey only had 237,000 miles, in horse years that’s practically nothing. One of the the things I will miss is the occasional visit to see Old Whitey’s vet, I mean mechanic, Mark Malin owner of Boslers Automotive. If you don’t know Mark he is a savant of car repair but more than that a renaissance man giving lectures on ancient Mayan astrophysics one minute and tearing off the top end of an Audi the next. I’ll continue to stop by the shop and soak up a little local color and philosophy from time to time. A great car caregiver is like a gifted MD; you want to stay in touch because sooner or later you’ll need them.

  I was going to end this installment with some sentimental trip down memory lane; all the places that truck had taken me fishing etc. but I think not. Let just say that truck gave me the best years of it’s life.

I replaced Old Whitey with a new Nissan Xterra; I guess we’ll see how she does and yes, it is white.