Farewell to the Explorer

All Southern Men shed a tear when a loved automobile is no more. The '91 Explorer was a (mostly) reliable steed; we bought it (gently used) when eldest son was an infant and the teens more or less grew up in it while Southern Man and Southern Ex put a quarter million miles on the clock. But the second trannie died a few years back and it's been slowly moldering behind the barn ever since, kept at first on teen son's request ("I'll fix it, Dad!") and started weekly and then monthly and then neglected long enough that the battery died and as time wore on the old Explorer was slowly forgotten.

So yesterday evening Southern Man and a friend went out and aired up the one flat tire (a slow leaker) and turned the motor over a few times and cleaned it out and pulled it up to the front of The Barn and today Southern Man met The Scrapper and his friend (who said they regularly take similar-vintage Explorers with good motors) and they hauled it away.

Southern Man rigs a rope for one last tow (top) and the Explorer goes the way of all things (bottom). Photo credits - Southern Man's Friend (top) and Southern Man (bottom).

So Southern Man is a $175 richer and a car poorer which worked out pretty well considering he feared he'd have to pay someone to come out to The Land to haul the carcass away. And there goes a little bit of Southern Man cred: no more derelict vehicles behind the outbuildings. Unless one counts the dead Murray lawn tractor sitting in front of the barn...