A History of my Life as Told with Cars
I sold my old car yesterday, or at least I almost. I still have the title, plus several thousand in cash. They have the car with expired plates. So, good deal for me. We will be meeting to do the title transfer after I return from Thanksgiving.
So, end of another car era. My car-owning eras coincide roughly with parts of my life. My first car was an '87 Dodge Shadow, blue, which was really a piece of crap. It got me around, I guess, and no big deal if I ran it into something (which I did on a few occasions; usually parked cars). I did leave me sitting alone on the interstate, no cell phone (this was in the late 90s); fortunately I was within easy walking distance of an exit. At 87,000 miles it was about finished, and during Christmas Breaks in college I would drive it with fear and trembling--one time the brakes cut out, another time we lost all real power on the way home from the beach, so we had to roll through all stop signs and pray we didn't hit any lights red, because the car wouldn't take off from a dead stop. Every year was a question: what will happen to the Shadow this Christmas?
My college car was a '90 Ford Bronco in silver. A big 4WD beast of a thing for those snowy western NY winters. I drove my friends around; we put seven girls in it for a cold ride to New England (cold for those in the way-back, at least). I took it grocery shopping, and on long drives to church. We even drove it to Florida for Spring Break. I liked it okay, and I really liked having a car, but small things were always going wrong--windows stuck down, tires going flat and not being able to find replacements in Podunk, NY--little glitches that made things difficult.
After college, when I moved here and didn't need the Bronco anymore, my dad sold it for me and I got the old '95 Honda. This became essentially the car of my 20s, and I really loved how reliable it was. The Honda took me all over--Lancaster, up to New England, to Ontario, down to North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. It's been up to Pittsburgh, to Baltimore, to Philly. It's taken me to thousands of work days at three different jobs, to many weddings, to a few funerals. I've sat in it nervously before dates and job interviews; I've had hundreds of conversations with myself, been angry, and wept, too.
And now it's gone, and I'm 29, with a new car that will take me well into my 30s. We'll just have to see what happens.
So, end of another car era. My car-owning eras coincide roughly with parts of my life. My first car was an '87 Dodge Shadow, blue, which was really a piece of crap. It got me around, I guess, and no big deal if I ran it into something (which I did on a few occasions; usually parked cars). I did leave me sitting alone on the interstate, no cell phone (this was in the late 90s); fortunately I was within easy walking distance of an exit. At 87,000 miles it was about finished, and during Christmas Breaks in college I would drive it with fear and trembling--one time the brakes cut out, another time we lost all real power on the way home from the beach, so we had to roll through all stop signs and pray we didn't hit any lights red, because the car wouldn't take off from a dead stop. Every year was a question: what will happen to the Shadow this Christmas?
My college car was a '90 Ford Bronco in silver. A big 4WD beast of a thing for those snowy western NY winters. I drove my friends around; we put seven girls in it for a cold ride to New England (cold for those in the way-back, at least). I took it grocery shopping, and on long drives to church. We even drove it to Florida for Spring Break. I liked it okay, and I really liked having a car, but small things were always going wrong--windows stuck down, tires going flat and not being able to find replacements in Podunk, NY--little glitches that made things difficult.
After college, when I moved here and didn't need the Bronco anymore, my dad sold it for me and I got the old '95 Honda. This became essentially the car of my 20s, and I really loved how reliable it was. The Honda took me all over--Lancaster, up to New England, to Ontario, down to North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. It's been up to Pittsburgh, to Baltimore, to Philly. It's taken me to thousands of work days at three different jobs, to many weddings, to a few funerals. I've sat in it nervously before dates and job interviews; I've had hundreds of conversations with myself, been angry, and wept, too.
And now it's gone, and I'm 29, with a new car that will take me well into my 30s. We'll just have to see what happens.
Labels: Big Questions, Lancaster Life, MINI Driving
posted by Melanie at 6:55 PM
