If I remember correctly, (which is always a little iffy), in our 41 years of wedded bliss there are only two times Dave and I have bought brand new cars. We are “those people” who subscribe to Consumer Reports, check the ratings, and purchase solidly recommended pre-owned vehicles, a.k.a. used cars. Then we drive them till they die. So far, Consumer Reports has never steered us wrong.
For that first brand-spankin’ new car we purchased we must have been in some sort of new-parent, tired student stupor, because it was so far from anything we would have ever purchased before or after that time.And, I might add, we did not consult Consumer Reports at that point. It was a baby blue two door Ford sedan. I don’t recall the model. I have no idea what compelled us to even look at such a thing, let alone buy it. My family still teases us about it. We didn’t own it for long. It was quickly replaced by a trusty used yellow Toyota Corona or Corolla or something like that. Honestly, for me cars are just vehicles of transportation.
The second new car we bought was a mini-van. This was in the era when the mini-van was a new and exciting mode of transportation for the large families that sprouted from the fertile soil of northern Utah. We had the van for two days before Dave and I left for a trip somewhere. I think maybe it was St Croix. Generally all Dave's trips were attached to business. Occasionally, if we could figure out what to do with the 4 kids who insisted on using our last name, I would join him for a get-away.
For this particular trip, wherever it was, we had enlisted my mom and sister, Libby to watch the kids. They both had jobs with some flexibility, and we were blessed by their willing hands and massively good hearts. Mom drove us to the airport. When she returned home she and Lib loaded the kids into that new van and drove to Peter Piper Pizza. The excitement of a brand new car, with all the new car smells and shiny dashboard, met with the comfort of spaciousness, where everyone had enough space to breathe. I think that new car smell went to their heads and they decided, on a whim, that they should all take a trip. So while we were flying off to some legal conference somewhere, they loaded up a couple suitcases of no-doubt unlaundered clothes for the kids, a large bag of nibbles and drinks, and headed west toward the San Francisco Bay area, where three of my sisters lived.
I can’t tell you much about their trip, because obviously, I wasn’t there, but they still talk about it… about how each kid was assigned to hold the hand of their adult-buddy as they traipsed around Ghirardelli Square… about the adventure of handling a van on the zig-zag slopes of Lombard Street… about feeding the seals and eating Boudin’s sourdough bread and fresh Dungeness crab bought on Fisherman’s Wharf. These were the memories of my own childhood trips to that magical place, and I think Gram and Lib just decided that my kids should have them, too.
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| These are not our kids, but I imagine this is how it looked and sounded in our van that week. |
When Dave and I got home from our get-away, we never would have known that anything out of the ordinary had happened for our little clan. John was playing in the back yard, Sarah was at the piano, Kate and Annie were trying to dress our cat, Mittens, in some Cabbage Patch clothes. Dinner was on the stove and the laundry was done and stacked in neat piles on the counter. It wasn’t until we got in our new van to drive to the grocery store that we suspected anything. Our first clue was the 2,000 miles on the odometer of our week-old car.
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| The odometer on our current Honda Odyssey van says 250,000.Our mechanic says it has a terminal disease. We are letting it fill the measure of its creation until it goes to mini-van heaven. |
Thanks, Mom and Lib, for breaking-in that trusty old workhorse of a van for us, and for trippin’ with my kiddos.
