Big Bertha has been a very important member of our family, and will be sorely missed. Don't worry too much... she is not a person, but our 1998 Windstar minivan. Shelby named her, because Bertha was the first vehicle she ever drove and therefore needed a cute nickname.
Bertha accompanied us on many adventures, many of them pivotal events of our lives. She moved Arthur here from Michigan back in 2003, and made herself at home here in Oklahoma City.
She carried a bunch of Northern goodies for us when we returned from Niagara Falls and Northern Michigan where we spent our honeymoon in 2004.
She faithfully took us on many excursions and summer vacations, until the year she decided to blow her transmission in Springfield, Missouri on the way to Arthur's parent's 60th anniversary celebration. After that, we decided the old lady was too old for cross-country road trips.
Even though she was no longer a strong work horse, she was like a family pet. We would drive her short distances whenever we needed to carry lots of people and lots of stuff. She would faithfully start up in rain and snow, and although she was beginning to make lots of funny noises, we could still count on her to get us safely to where we wanted to go.
Big Bertha's last major assignment was to spend time with Shelby as her transportation at college. The funny noises had increased to where Shelby did not drive her back and forth from Stillwater to the City .... Bertha just lived there on campus. At the end of the school year, Bertha's days were numbered. We knew it was becoming time to send her to that great highway in the sky.
Today we took her to a nice man that worked at a place that had lots of old and new cars who promised to send her off to her next home, and even gave us her plates as a souvenier. He felt sorry for our loss, so he let us take home a younger truck to try to console us.
The truck is nice and all, but Big Bertha, I will miss you!
