Back in college, I had a buddy named Mike who drove the most dilapidated Ford Bronco in the state of Michigan. It was a late 1980s model, similar to the white example etched in our collective memories by O.J. Simpson in 1994. While Mike’s Bronco did have some paint left, it was a different color and was accented by various shades of rust and Bondo. It was a fairly unreliable vehicle, and had the two Bronco owners traded prior to the famous car chase, it’s a safe bet O.J. would have been quickly apprehended on the side of the road amid a growing pool of radiator coolant.
As miserable as that truck was, Mike loved it. He freely admitted that it was a wholly nonsensical vehicle for him to drive; he never carried passengers, he never hauled anything, and he spent most of his time commuting 35 minutes on an interstate freeway. Nearly any other vehicle would have been a more logical and economical choice. But that Bronco enabled Mike to do what he loved most—go on off-road camping adventures in northern Michigan about two or three times a year.
