A single dad couldn’t hide his emotions when his adult kids bought back his decades-old truck that had carried his family through some of the hardest of times and most rewarding times. Donnie Couch, 74, from Lancaster, South Carolina, was a single parent with a small village helping the beloved dad raise his two kids, Tina and Otis, the paid said. For 18 years, Donnie worked long hours in a nuclear power plant over an hour away, meaning he’d occasionally have to take the kids to their grandma's house at 4:30am before his shift started. The family would ride in Donnie's reliable "Old Green Truck," a 1965 Chevrolet C10 which took Tina and Otis through their youth and into adulthood, never letting Donnie or the kids down. Despite being a single-income family, Donnie, Tina and Otis always had great fun with the truck, which they loaded with their bikes to take on adventures, travelling to state parks and on trails. As Tina and Otis grew up, they each drove to high school in The Old Green Truck, which still had marks on the passenger door panel from where the leg braces Otis wore in kindergarten once rubbed. The humility that came with growing up with such a reliable vehicle was one of the main reasons why Tina, now 46, decided to go into the automotive industry to work. Having continued to work on the truck until 2014, Donnie later accepted that with two weak knees and poor health, he could no longer maintain his beloved vehicle and so decided to sell it. In a beautiful twist of fate, though, Tina's line of work meant she happened to know the buyer, who was planning to work on upgrading the truck with his brother in their spare time. The buyer posted progress photos on Facebook over a number of years, and Tina left a comment to say that, if he was ever looking to sell the truck again, she would take it off his hands. When that day came, the buyer kept his word, and within 24 houra Otis and Tina collected their cherished old vehicle, which they’d first ridden back in the
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00You know what that is?
00:02You know what it is?
00:04For over 30 years,
00:06single dad Donnie's trusty old green truck
00:09always had his back.
00:11Throughout childhood,
00:12Tina and Otis rode everywhere in the old green truck.
00:16A 1965 Chevy C10.
00:19It was our vehicle.
00:21That's how we got around.
00:22That was kind of our security.
00:25That was the vehicle we depended on.
00:27From early morning drop-offs at Grandma's
00:29on his way to the power plant,
00:31weekend trips, and high school,
00:32the truck never let them down.
00:35I remember when we first got it,
00:38back in the day,
00:39Otis was so little,
00:41he could stand up in the seat,
00:44in the middle.
00:46He was so small.
00:47My above was his seatbelt.
00:51It even carried the marks of their lives.
00:54Such as where Otis' leg braces
00:55as he wore in kindergarten once rubbed.
00:58Little reminders of journeys they took together.
01:01But when Donnie's help forced him to sell the truck,
01:03he thought it was gone for good.
01:04That was tough.
01:05I didn't really want it to sit out there in the backyard
01:07and really just rust away.
01:10But Tina,
01:11now working in the automotive industry,
01:13partly thanks to her love of the truck,
01:15knew its new owner.
01:17They made a promise.
01:19If he ever sold it,
01:20she'd be the first to know.
01:22I'm there to do business with them,
01:24but I never talk business with them.
01:26It was always about
01:27a little green truck.
01:30And he would show me pictures,
01:31and then I would follow him on Facebook,
01:33and I would share him with dad and my brother.
01:35Years passed,
01:36and true to his word,
01:38the owner called Tina when he decided to sell.
01:41You know what it is?
01:41Oh my God.
02:04Time stood still.
02:30The truck that carried them through it all was back.
02:34It's going to be my daily driver.
02:46It's going to be my daily driver.
02:48It's going to be my daily driver.
02:58It's going to be my daily driver.
03:14It's going to be my daily driver.
03:26It's going to be my daily driver.