The date was July 24th, 1999. Windows 98 was the dominant operating system. Cell phones were still a thing of the future for all but the most exclusive few. There was a small family from that era who had just moved into Chicago from Texas.
An eleven-year-old boy sat bored at a car dealership. His dad was negotiating for a new Chrysler LHS – the flagship luxury car of the brand at the time. The little kid was restless, and his mother and a salesman suggested he go sit in a minivan sitting in the big glass showroom and pretend to drive it.
“But what if I start it up and crash?” He asked.
“Oh, I’m sure they disabled it,” his mother said absentmindedly.
So the little boy played in the minivan. First, he made “vroom, vroom,” sounds. Then, he adjusted the seats. He decided that he wanted to feel really grown up and turn on the radio. The keys were in the ignition – should he turn them? After all, his mother said that the car couldn’t really move.
Well, the dealership was not destroyed, but it came rather close to it. Instead, a salesperson ran over and shut off the minivan right before the little kid shifted it out of park as he leaned over to turn on the radio.
Ever since then, the car became part of the family, first at a regular fixture of suburbia house and then at a more rural location. It didn’t always get in the garage when it rained, as a bunch of children’s toys usually ended up there, but at least it got the carport.
The car was around for a lot of things. The eleven-year-old boy passed his driver’s test on it. The boy’s dad threw a Frisbee at it which left a mark that he could never get off. When he was seventeen, the boy and his dad went to a mission trip in Oklahoma in the car, where it was featured prominently in the parking lot and was permanently dyed by splatters from girls painting a picnic table.
When he turned eighteen, the boy spun it out and missed the SAT. At twenty, he drove across the country in it with his grandmother in pursuit of history and trains. For his last eight weeks in college at LeTourneau, he brought it down to pack his stuff in and to (unsuccessfully) cruise chicks with. He drove it back north when he graduated, and then south again for graduate school. His last major journey with it was heading south, where he saw relatives, those who would not be relatives, museums, historical sights, and places of railroad significance.
Still, it had never been a very reliable car. The air conditioner broke just a few short years into the car’s existence and was never able to be permanently fixed. The electronics system, the tires (the boy was driving it once at 70 mph when one tire blew off the rim), and many of the other components failed sooner than they should have. After a strut broke as the culmination of several repairs, the man realized it was time to move on. After all, his dad’s first car had to be towed, and since his car was low mileage, the boy hoped to recover some value from it.
He listed it on Craigslist and was honest about the good and bad of the car. A neighbor picked it up with the intent to fix it up for his daughter. Since he is a mechanical fellow and has all the tools, he will be able to maintain it much cheaper. And the boy is happy knowing that the car is still around. But never again will he drive it to school, and that little kid riding in the back seat on the way back from church is forever just a memory.
Coming soon: the car that replaced it.
railfanchemist 