The Wednesday car
description
Betty was a Wednesday car.
The old Detroit axiom goes: "Never buy a car built on a
Monday or a Friday." On Monday the assembly workers are
all too hungover to pay attention, and on Friday they're all
too preoccupied thinking about the weekend.
When we prepared Betty for her final departure last year, her
envelope of repair documents was so slim we thought we'd misplaced
a whole other file somewhere. But there it was: all she had
to show for sixteen years and 140,000 miles was a water pump
and a couple of batteries, one clutch (after ten years of San
Francisco hills), and a fan belt or two. The car had simply
never required repair!
We bought Betty, as yet unchristened, in 1982, the very first
new car for either of us. She was our first joint financial
venture, a much scarier prospect than marriage, which would come
three years later. The ancient Valiant (those slant-6 Dodge
species would run forever, although they were severely underbraked
for their weight) did for both for us until Barry was promoted
to manager of the record store, and needed to attend meetings
in San Jose. Up until then he'd walked the spectacularly beautiful
mile to the store along the rocky Pacific Grove shore. We decided
on a station wagon, since he needed to carry "product"
(all entertainment companies still call their records, CD's and
videos "product," much to the annoyance of the artists
who produce the work) from store to store. We were leaning toward
a Honda, since we'd heard good reports on these new Japanese
imports. So off we went to Salinas, home of new and used car
lots, and found ourselves pausing in front of a jaunty little
Civic wagon of a rich brownish hue with metallic flecks. "What's
that color called?" Barry asked the salesguy.
"Uh, dunno. I'll check" he replied. "Savoy Brown"
he announced as he came huffing and puffing back from the office.
Barry and I looked at each other in secret amusement. Savoy
Brown was a somewhat obscure British blues band, of which we
were aware but the salesman was not. We took it as an omen.
Out of sixteen years, the Honda probably spent one year parked
in the garage. The remaining years she spent at the curb, in
Pacific Grove, where few of the old Victorians even had garages,
and later in San Francisco, where parking is a joke. Even when
we moved to suburbia, land of the two-car garage, we had so much
junk that we could only fit one, and by then we had bought a
minivan as well, so poor Betty, as "second wife", was
once again relegated to street parking. In all this time she
was never broken into once, possibly because of her modest demeanor,
and her finish remained uneroded, even though we knew enough
not to buy the sealant the salesguy was hawking.
At first we tried to keep up scheduled maintenance, but after
awhile we faltered and then forgot entirely. The car simply
thrived on neglect; we'd had her five years before we realized
we'd never had her into the shop for any repairs. We joked that
we gave her "an oil change every 30,000 miles, whether she
needs it or not!" We fed her absolutely the cheapest, lowest
octane gas we could find, and we never let her warm up in the
morning, just started the ignition and pulled away. Betty was
"rode hard and left muddy", and yet never once failed
to start up, lively and merry, at the first turn of the key.
There's no explanation for it, except that the day she was made,
every single worker in that plant was "in flow": had
communally reached that rare plane of harmony wherein the task
becomes a dance.
Betty, as yet unnamed, brought home our first baby from the hospital
in San Francisco. The nurse and Barry fiddled for many minutes
to affix the baby seat correctly. By child number two three
years later, we had it down, and came to the hospital with a
second carseat already correctly installed. After that, she
assumed an aroma of fermented apple juice and cinnamon graham
crackers; not exactly that "new car" smell, but I believe
it was a secret deterrent to car robbers.
One night I totaled the Valiant in a rainstorm on the curvy part
of 101 down by the Big Red Barn, so we were down to one car -
a stickshift - which I had never learned to drive. So round
and round we went in the empty parking lot of an office park
on Sunday, with grinding gears and a smoking clutch as I reluctantly
mastered the skill. Betty took it all in stride and never slipped,
even later, when I had learned to double-clutch on the trickiest
hills in Chinatown.
One day, inexplicably, Betty didn't start. It was a first, and
shook the foundations of our existence. With a jump start and
a little checking, we discovered that the original battery was
now seven years old, and had quietly died. The Triple-A guy
said they didn't even make that kind any more. While I was in
her repair file, I saw that she hadn't had a tune-up in five
or six years, so, guilt-ridden, I took her in. But the garage
guy said, "Ma'am, I'll give it a tune-up if you really want,
but there's no need to. The points and plugs are clean and firing
right". What a miracle; a Wednesday car AND an honest mechanic!
It was Amanda who named her, when, faced with two commutes in
opposite directions, we bought the Chrysler minivan in 1993.
She decided that both cars must have names, and coined "Rosebud"
from my name and her grandfather's, and "Betty" for
my mother, who at 81 years of age is still bright and strong
and vigorous. I don't know if she got the connection.
The Chrysler has been a disappointing litany of recall notices,
part failures, and inexplicable problems. But then, we were
spoiled. When it was finally paid off, we had to face up to
replacing the little Honda for her one, but fatal shortcoming;
one that had never mattered until we moved east of the Caldecott:
she had no air conditioning. In the brutal 100+ degree summers,
she became undrivable through no fault of her own. But in loyalty
to her kind, we decided on another Honda, the compact Odyssey
minivan. With three cars and a two-car garage, the inevitable
outcome became apparent: Betty had to go.
I felt distressed and disloyal. I had always joked that when
her time had come, I would plant geraniums in her and keep her
in the back yard. But we lived in a townhouse. And, at over
140,000 miles, she was starting to need the equivalent of a hip
replacement: she had an oil leak from the head gasket. Her registration
was due; we had to make a decision.
Ten years with kids in the back had rendered her interior less
than desirable for sale to an individual, and we didn't want
strangers circling her slowly, curling their lips in disdain
over her now-disheveled appearance. So we decided to donate
her to a non-profit as in all those ads you see and hear. Surely
someone would buy this valiant little car and enjoy a few more
years of her cheerful performance?
The charity we selected was not one you hear about on the radio,
but I saw it in a newspaper ad: you could donate your car to
the Lindsay Museum of Wildlife. I had felt guilty letting our
membership lapse, and this would be a way of keeping the money
in Contra Costa, and commemorating our family's love of wildlife.
The children, who were very upset that we were giving her away
(maybe they thought we might do the same with them!), could at
least see where the money (or, at least, a tiny portion of it)
was going. I called and got the paperwork in
order.
That was when we pulled her repair records and realized what
a Guinness Book of Records case we had here. Barry and the girls
went out to give her a last, loving car wash, an interior tidy
up, and even a wax job. This was a comforting rite for the girls.
While they were occupied, I surreptitiously fired up the computer
and typed her a letter of recommendation! This I hid in the
glove compartment with documents we instructed to put there.
I wanted whoever had the good luck to buy her to know what a
jewel she was, and to respect her accordingly. Barry found it,
but soulmate that he is, didn't think it all mushy or silly to
include it in her "resume".
When the tow truck came to haul her away, even though she was
capable of leaving under her own power, we all held hands and
I cried. The girls are always fascinated to see their mother
cry; it only happens on momentous occasions or during maudlin
Hallmark TV ads. Barry was upset too; for days we underwent
an uneasiness and sadness we identified as low-grade grieving.
Not so much for Betty, but for all the years that had passed
during her tenure: our courtship, our marriage, two kids, several
jobs, two moves, our first house.
Somewhere I hope some refugee or immigrant family is taking advantage
of the 30,000 miles or so left in our little Wednesday car.
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Questions? Brian McKinney
(bmckinne@home.com)