(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today) 

I’m old and my life is falling apart.

I turned 25 last week- a quarter of century.  That’s 175 dog years.  Most folks, especially my wife who is a pretty young thing of 24, expect me to be walking with a cane any day now.  They say 25 is a big milestone.

I didn’t believe them.  What’s another year?  It doesn’t matter if you’re 16,19,25 or really as old as 31- as long as you’re young at heart.  I’m young at heart.  I told myself that age isn’t affecting me yet.

I was wrong.

As a young person, bad things never happened to me.  As a young person, finding mold on my Velveeta is as close as I ever came to a crisis.  In youth I was invincible.

Since I turned 20, i’ve been driving around in this wonderful1968 Ford pickup.  It’s not fancy, but it was in beautiful shape for such an old truck.  I dutifully washed it, waxed it and had it mechanical innards checked out.

“Take care of it and you’ll get a lot of good miles out of it,” my dad said when I got it.  There were only 40,000 miles on the odometer then. Now there are 13,000 on the dial.  No, the odometer has not been running backward.  I drove it when it was a sweltering 108 degrees in Iowa.  I drove it when it was 40 degrees below zero in North Dakota. (Not counting wind chill).  I drove it in thunderstorms and blizzards.

But despite all those miles and those awful driving conditions I never had any serious problems because I was young and unstoppable.

But last week as I approached my 25^th birthday, I suddenly became stoppable.

I convinced my wife that we could drive the pickup to Minnesota.  “It’ll get us there and back without any problem,” I told her.  It got us there without any problem.  Getting back was another story.

When we left to return to Boone, I noticed a slight tap-tap-tapping noise.  Noises come and noised go with regularity when you drive an old pickup so I wasn’t concerned.  Four hours later when we reached St. Paul it was TAP-TAP-TAPPING!  So we stopped for the night.

Convinced that the noise was not serious and that we would be back on our way by noon.  I took it to a mechanic the next morning.  “Never heard a noise like that before,” he said.  “Besides, we don’t do major engine work here.”

The next mechanic listened to the noise.  Then he took a drop of oil from the dipstick and spread it on his finger.  Tiny metal shavings glistened in the oil. “Rod bearing,” he announced.  “or it could be a wrist pin.  You might make it to Iowa or you might not,” he said.  “If a rod goes, you’re talkin’ new engine and i’ve seen ‘em throw parts right thru the hood.  That’s a nice looking truck, I’d hate to see that happen.”

I was only a day away from 25 and suddenly I wasn’t feeling so invincible anymore.

I’m afraid I’m not handling this crisis very well.  I don’t know where or if I’m going to get it fixed.  I don’t know what to do with it if I don’t get it fixed and I miss cruising around Boone in my shiny old pickup.

For now the pickup is in Minnesota with a terminal case of the TAPS and I’m in Iowa feeling old and wondering how much longer my own rod bearings are going to hold out.