These American Times

I'm grieved to report that we've lost a member of the These American Times family. Our Van bit the dust today in Snyder, TX.

When we pulled into Snyder on our way to Lubbock we started to hear a faint rattle like distant tambourine. We pulled it over, popped the hood and looked curiously at the mess of parts. We looked at each other realizing that none of knew anything about car mechanics and popping the hood was pretty pointless. We decided to give her a rest and continue on. About a mile down the road the tambourine sound grew louder. I looked out of the side mirror and saw billows of white smoke behind us. Not a good thing. We stopped - and didn't start again.

We called a mechanic who towed the van to the shop, took one look and said, "Ya, you're screwed."  They said it needs a new motor which will cost more than I paid for the van to start with, which means that tomorrow we will be dropping it off in the junk yard. We'll take a moment of silence and move on. The van man be done, but we're not. 

I'm deeply sad to leave her behind. I bonded with that van - which was dubbed Van Halen. She tried hard to carry us where we needed to go, and kept us comfortable and cool - for a whole 2 days. She didn't make it far but she died well.

We set out on an adventure and one is unfolding perfectly as if it were planned.

So the van is in Snyder, and we're in Lubbock. We happened to break down in front of the house of James Wolf. A man we didn't know but who turned out to be a saint. He helped us while we tried to figure out what to do, and offered to hook up our trailer to his truck and drive us to Lubbock so we could make our show tonight. Thank you James for the help and good conversation.