Cemetery puts truck out to pasture after several decades

After witnessing four decades of burials at Forest Hill Cemetery, a Ford truck with more lives than a movie zombie has finally succumbed to old age itself.

That 1988 truck -- called the cemetery's "grave truck" by Forest Hill Superintendent Ernie Phillips -- is being put out to pasture after untold hours of work as the Greencastle Board of Public Works and Safety this week approved purchase of a 2015 Chevrolet 3500 truck for the Cemetery Department.

It's not the miles on the old Ford but the wear-and-tear of years of use that eventually did it in.

In fact, the truck, used mostly to haul away dirt after graves were opened and then return dirt to re-landscape the gravesite area, rarely left the cemetery confines in recent years. Still Phillips called it a "vital" piece of equipment for his department's operations.

"I don't know if the speedometer even works on it any more," Phillips laughed. "It's 28 years old."

The truck is so old, it was new back when Bill Clinton was still governor of Arkansas and rookie Chris Chandler was quarterbacking the Indianapolis Colts.

"I started out here in 1989," the cemetery superintendent added, "so it was a year old when I got here."

Over the years, the Forest Hill crew has pieced the old truck back together, frugally making it useful again, thankfully without resorting to duct tape or baling wire.

"We replaced the bed on it twice," Phillips recalled. "We've redone the body twice and repainted it two times."

But the metal is old and fatigued now, he told the board, sounding like he was losing an old friend when he added, "we can't do much more."

Mayor Sue Murray praised the Cemetery Department for another example of extending the life of its equipment, adding that city department heads continue to be excellent stewards of city equipment funds.

"We've kept it going all these years," Phillips said after the Board of Works accepted a bid from York Automotive, Greencastle, for $35,333 for a four-wheel-drive vehicle and dump bed.

"It was time to get it replaced," Phillips added. "I think we got our money's worth out of it."

Board member Trudy Selvia made the motion to accept the York proposal as the lowest and only local bid. Thom Morris and Mayor Murray added affirmative votes.

Also submitting bids on the truck were Kenny Vice Ford, Ladoga, $37,995, and Andy Mohr, Plainfield, $38,635.

The old truck is now expected to find its way into the next city surplus auction where who knows, maybe another new life awaits.