A Post About My Roadhuggers

Having had only a pair of cars, I'm naturally quite fond of each of them.  And now, on the eve of my last week as a bachelor, one Chevy Lumina decided I would enter married life without it.  So with all the sentimentality found in other blog posts focused on my graying hair and lost articles of childhood, for example, this is a blog about the Olds and the Chevy, a pair of white road beasts I pampered as I drove them into the ground.

I owe it all to my dad, who treated his cars with great respect and passed them on to me to do the same.

Olds at Field's Point Landing, waiting for hippies, c. 2000

The Olds rolled me to college and waited patiently every day in parking lots during the seven years I chose to take to graduate, upon which it merrily pranced north into the Cascade mountains and life at Holden Village. It gained freckles of oxidization from sun exposure, its blue interior reverse-tanning.  Olds rested on the banks of Lake Chelan, absorbing snow piles on its vinyl cover and taking on its first real winters, waiting for passengers.  When they arrived on the boat, they were lovely dirty new friends who borrowed it to drive the heck out of it on logging roads, bringing dirt and mountain funk to Olds' floorboards and seats.  Olds and me saw our first Big Wu show together, then our first Phish show together.  It carried around my first girlfriends and parked in many romantic spots along the West Coast.  The Olds ran across the country at least a half dozen times, including hauling family to Montana for the first time.  When I decided to move to Germany, and when my sister's family's "Suburban"  turned into a "Subground-level" it moved down to Fresno.  After that, it seemed to breathe its last, having up to then survived all those drives but suddenly (of course because of my absence) gave up on all its parts. Without an Advanced Directive, 300,000 miles after it was born, it apparently broke down, and then was broken into while abandoned, then hauled away to the car morgue to be cremated.  Gone but with a very present spirit, that Olds is still running up and down Highway 101 and across 90, looking very unlike your typical "Father's Oldsmobile."  

Chevy's dimple, with cover-ups,
minus outdated Hillary sticker, since she lost.
The sticker's subtitle stated: "Democrats put
on rear bumper, Republicans put on front!"
I put it on the side 'cause I voted for Obama.
Ok, this is a long caption.

Meanwhile, my parents' Chevy Lumina had become older than they liked and they purchased an Impala (not an Ibex), and after I returned from writing my Bavarian story, I inherited Chevy and its dimple. The dimple came courtesy of some aggressive punk who kicked the front in when he thought my dad had followed him too closely on one of San Francisco's slopes. Upon receiving Chevy, I immediately started courting my fiance who promptly bought me a political bumper sticker ('Run, Hillary, Run') to cover the dimple, to which I later added a Northern Exposure sticker of Fleishman's office and a GNP (Glacier National Park) sticker.  The political sticker plus the GNP sticker prompted someone to honestly ask if it stood for Gay National Party.  

The Chevy took me to Kelli's side and our first meeting at the Sequoia National Park where I accidentally left the keys in the car, prompting me to mangle the driver window parts as well as the passenger door lock, breaking them for the rest of Chevy's life (this would be very ironic because I wouldn't be able to open the door for my new woman again nor be able to roll down my window to order her Taco Bell meals...classy). Chevy carried me up and down California to woo her, and finally led/trailed her red Ford Ranger as we trekked north to start a life together in Seattle. After living in the Chevy a few weeks, I found a home and then a job hauling lovely dirty Democrat activists around Seattle knocking on doors during the 2008 political season.  Chevy brought home two crazy feral cats and a warm new bassador who have become our most precious resources. It then hauled a flour child back and forth from Grand Central Bakery to graduate school. Chevy signaled the presence of a new teaching intern to an urban middle school and trekked across the country several times to catch glimpses of its future Montanan home.

Not one of Chevy's greatest moments, but it was totally not
its fault!  (somewhere along the Seeley/Swan, c. 2011

After experiencing a few cold but snowless winters, Chevy began to show its signature: the Big Peel. It began at the dimple, then on the hood, a likely place given all the frontal driving hits it took for a few years.  But soon it spread conspicuously to the doors and to the roof, an illogical pattern. I chalked it up to rain frozen by Seattle gray weather, which blistered the paint and caused it to break off.  Flying down Seattle highways, large chunks of Chevy skin would flake off and flutter behind like snow, in July.  A significant amount of door paint had peeled to resemble a SHERIFF or POLICE decal, providing me and Chevy with ample respect from other cars that would suddenly brake when seeing us.  By the time we moved to Montana, Chevy acquired a gray bald spot and became more recognizable than me among my students, several of whom daily ran up to me and said "Were you at _______?  Cuz I saw your car and I was all HEY MR. A!"  It also became a conversation piece among my students who used it to bond with me after I reprimanded them. They would saunter up to me later and after a minute of awkward silence and almost like an apology, say "You sure have a cool car, Mr. A."  I'd say thanks, and all would be normal again.  And that's how I like it.  I am my cars.  

"Coexist my ass!" - some guy outside
a  gas station in Montana...

Chevy, at 260,000 miles old and balder than its owner, saw me safely through bachelorhood, picking up where Olds left off.  Chevy cranked its last in Polson, Montana, two weeks before my wedding.  Its final successful start came after my thwarted attempt to find the Glacier Brewing Company on a hot day.  Chevy kicked butt in everything it did despite all its problems, just like its bachelor owner.  It will donate its organs to other deserving Chevies and live on.  We'll say goodbye to each other on Monday July 23, with my parents and my fiancee in attendance.  We'll hug one more time, and no doubt a large swath of paint will peel off as we part.  Thanks, Chevy.  You done real good.