I married a mechanic, saints be praised. This was probably the second best decision of my life. He has saved us some significant change over the years. He learned from his mechanic father, who could fix just about anything. A real renaissance man, in spite of being forced to quit school in 6th. Grade to help his family survive. So through the years, we’ve owned a variety of cars, mostly second hand. In our early days together, we had no car. We took the bus or walked. Then his generous brother gave us his 1963 Ford Galaxy, a great car, other than its penchant for rusting. When it rained on road trips, we would periodically need to stop to bail out the floor of the back seat with a coffee can. But it ran great and got us from California to Florida via Minnesota in those Navy days.
Things improved with a company car, a 1973 Chevy Impala, brand new. Oh that “new car” smell! Luxury! Since then, we’ve had a variety of gently used cars that we have cherished and driven into the ground. I abhor the bondage of car payments. My talented husband takes good care of them. At the present time we drive a black 2005 Ford 500 by the name of Harrison Ford, Harry for short. Harry has clocked over 200,000 miles. We are also the proud owners of Bucky Freeman, our sweet black 2011 Ford Ranger, named for the deer we grazed one night on the bypass, and Morgan Freeman, a favorite actor of ours. Both vehicles run like tops, although Harry has some serious osteoporosis that is invisible to the casual observer. We hold our breaths at each yearly inspection, but so far, so good. And both have a few dings and scratches. We hope to drive them into the ground also.
But there is something liberating about this situation. When we are out driving, we can relax. So what if someone bumps into Harry or Bucky while we are in the Mall? Not the end of the world. They are well used, well loved. Aging and imperfect, like us. We have our own dings and scratches, but I figure that we might as well embrace the process along with our vehicles. Kind of silly to fight it.
