Cars I've Owned and Loved

We bought a new car.  I really didn't want one.  Our old one was fine with me, but it had over 260,000 miles on it and was beginning to show its age.

  

The problem with age, whether it is humans, animals, or cars, is that aging is costly.  Our aging dogs are keeping the vet in business and the same was true of our mechanic.  It seemed that every week I was taking the car in and saying, "we've got to stop meeting like this."  But, just like any elderly person there was always another part that had to be replaced in our elderly car.  We decided there were some things we could live with, like the driver's side door that no longer opened, but when we received the prognosis that the brakes required another $900 procedure, we decided to release it to automobile heaven.

So, we bought a new car, or a new used car I should say.  We found a 2015 model used car with 5,500 miles .  Eureka!  The days are long gone when I feel the need to impress friends or neighbors with the latest new gadget or car, although that was not the case in my younger days.  Like a lot of us when we were younger, the type of car that we drove was always very important.  In fact, the first car I bought was the only other used car I have every owned.  All the rest have been driven off of the dealer's showroom floor, new. 

My first car was a Dodge Dart,  gold with white leather interior and a push button transmission.  I would never have picked out that car.  My father found it for me shortly after I graduated college when I needed cheap transportation to my first real job.  My father always had a fondness for Chrysler products.  I don't know why.  He was a quality control inspector for Ford for years, which might say something about the quality and reputation of Fords in those days.  He found a good deal on a car that never gave me any problems, but, it was not the car of my dreams.  It wasn't me. 

I drove that Dart for a couple of years while I settled into having a steady paycheck and finally made my way to the Volkswagen dealer to buy my dream car, a yellow VW convertible.  I loved that car, except in the snow.  It got around great, but the top was not air tight.  I would find myself chugging up steep, icy hills  , passing other cars that were spinning out, all the time being  surrounded by snow swirling throughout the interior.

   

That car was followed by another VW, a red Karmann Ghia convertible, one of the most fun cars I've ever owned.   A guy I worked with convinced me that I needed to sell it to him and as a result, I ended up owning the first Toyota of three.

 

The Toyotas were followed by two Hondas and then a Saturn, which was followed by a Ford Ranger and then two Volvos, which were purchased not for aesthetics, but because they were safe and reliable cars.  When you get older, safety and reliability become more important than whether or not your car makes a statement.  The last two cars, the Volvos, were also the only automatic transmissions that I ever owned with the exception of that push button Dart.

Our new car is an automatic also, but it is not a concession to age.  I still prefer to drive manual transmissions, but they are becoming impossible to find here in the U.S.  Stick shifts are not only fun to drive, but safer than automatics.  You can't be a lazy driver with a stick shift.  You have to think ahead.  Then there is the challenge of being able to idle at a stop sign on a hill without using the brake.  Automatics don't offer the same opportunity.

Our little old Ford Ranger has a manual transmission and we will probably keep it until we die.  It will keep running until then as it has no electronic parts. There is very little that can go wrong, unlike the cars manufactured today which purposely have computer obsolescence built into them.

Our new car has all of these electronic warning systems, for backing up or monitoring a blind spot.  It has GPS and Wi-Fi, but these luxuries are little more than computers that can go bad at any time and where is the fun in that.  The cars today may be as efficient as a cell phone, but they will never provide the thrill of driving down a deserted two lane highway in the middle of Western Kansas at 100 miles per hour with the top down.

Without Love

It's was a beautiful morning. I was sitting in my garden having a rest after putting in some more plants and then the day was shattered, like so many have been recently, by the news of another school shooting. “When is it going to end?” I asked myself. Everything has changed once again. What I was going to write about no longer seems relevant. The only things that matter now are all the families who have to go through the pain of losing their love ones in such a senseless way. In a nation like ours, with all the resources that we have available why can't we solve this problem? Have we become so desensitized that we have no desire to hold those to account who are responsible for this madness? It isn't just the gun manufacturers. It isn't just the mental health community or the social case workers that let people fall through the cracks. It isn't just the media, who in a way glorify the violence and its perpetrators by broadcasting the chaos that they create over and over and over ad infinitum. It isn't just the manufacturers of video games who have created a culture of violence. It isn’t just rap that glorifies violence and an in-your-face lifestyle. It's all of us, even those who care about our fellow man. It's all of us because we were at rave at each other. It is each one of us thinks we are in the center of the universe and our own well-being is the most important thing. I think we need a major reassessment of our worth. It doesn't matter how many cars you on or how many square feet your houses are or how fashionably you were dressed or what fine restaurants you've always dined in. We are failing as a society and as individuals if we fail to protect our most precious possession, our children and each other. The problem is, laws are not going to change the situation. That's the first thing we talk about, gun laws, all kinds of proposals have been made for how to correct this situation with laws, but none of them are going to make the difference. We have to address the reason behind all of the desperate lives that cause people to think they have no recourse but to lash out at others. This time, however, the cacophony of protests was dimmed by another unlikely event taking place, the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. For a few hours on Saturday morning, a good portion of the world was transfixed as an American commoner, with one failed marriage behind her, of mixed race, raised by a single black mother, from a family that could be described as dysfunctional at best, vowed before God and the world to love and be faithful to the person who is fifth in line to the throne of England. Accompanying all of the pomp and circumstance that is a Royal wedding, was a fiery message about love by a very black American Episcopal priest, Bishop Michael Curry taken from the book of Amos in the Bible. His words may have been for Harry and Meghan, but they were words that the whole world needed to hear. “When love is the way -- unselfish, sacrificial, redemptive, when love is the way, then no child would go to bed hungry in this world ever again. When love is the way we will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever flowing brook. When love is the way poverty will become history. When love is the way the earth will become a sanctuary. When love is the way we will lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside to study war no more. When love is the way there’s plenty good room, plenty good room for all of God’s children.” And I would add, when love is the way, we won't have to worry about our children being slaughtered in their classrooms by their peers. Does it sound too simple? Perhaps yes, but desperate times call for desperate measures and sometimes there is nothing more desperate than love. The words to the old Doobie Brothers hit come to mind: “Without love, where would you be now?” Look around, this is what it looks like without love.