“I am a family man, traded in my Mustang for a minivan”
- Andrew Peterson
Actually, it was a Saab, a vintage, 1991 black 900 S with leather seats and a sun roof.
It was one of those curvaceous European style Saabs that they stopped making a few years later in favor of a boxier design that repulses me.
It was my dream car, and it had called out to me from the dealership where it was prominently displayed, and where I gave it longing glances every day on my way to my odious college summer job as a door to door vacuum cleaner salesman. (Shampoo your rug Ma’m?)
After passing it for only a few days, I stopped in and that same afternoon traded in my trusty, rusty Blazer for it and took on payments that forced me to drop out of college later that year. (As the sage Bart Simpson says “Ah the joys of mortgaging your future”)
I named it Jackson.
Jackson and I joined the Air Force together, met my wife Julie together (when he faithfully carted us around on dates and crazy road trips in the dead of night) and were generally inseparable for six glorious years.
I grew to love Jackson’s intricacies, the way that certain doors would only open certain ways in bad weather, the way the engine sounded like a Mac truck, the way it let you know exactly the quality of the road you were driving on by the way it felt every bump and the way the seats would cling to you on a humid day. Jackson survived the state of Massachusetts where I lived for only a year and a half and had three accidents (none of them my fault I’m proud to say) and where he was rebuilt by a kindly mechanic after being declared totaled by an insurance adjuster.
Because I am by nature a sentimental person, and because Jackson saw me through some rocky transitions in my life, it became hard to admit it when he started to show signs of age. I pumped life into Jackson year after year and dollar after dollar. He started to resist starting in cold weather (which we have in abundance in New Hampshire) and the check engine light was perpetually on. Strange (well, stranger) sounds started emanating from beneath the hood and odd shuttering sensations rumbled through when he labored to change gears.
About this same time a life changing event loomed just on the horizon, one that announced itself one morning in the sweet voice of my wife Julie. I am, nor will probably never be a “morning person.” Actually, that is probably an understatement.
I come from a long line of sleepers, and though my body may be “awake” at say, seven in the morning, my brain wakes up roughly three hours after later. (This made boot camp exceptionally difficult.) My college roommates would call me “swamp thing” for the way I would rise from my bed (which they called “the crypt”) with arms outstretched in that “Scooby Doo monster fashion” and mutter and curse incoherently for hours before I could carry on a real conversation or task. (Thanks fellas for all the pranks played on me in those morning hours, they have made me the wary, grouchy, cautious person I am today.)
So, lying blissfully in bed in the haze of a sunny June morning, I heard my beautiful wife’s voice cutting through the dense fog of my brain, like a distant radio transmission, saying these words:“Alex, I’m pregnant.”
I have, since I can remember, had a joke I was planning to use on this very occasion, and that was “do we know who the mother is.” But in the cloud of the morning, and in the shock of the moment the joke stayed in it’s holster as I struggled to sit up and open one eye.
There she was, the owner of that sweet, smoky voice that I love, leaning over me as she knelt beside the bed. She had an expression on her face that I had never seen before, a mix of teariness, shock and expectation. And she was waiting for me to say something.I don’t remember what I said (I’m told this is a common symptom of shock) but looking back on that morning I seem to remember saying “we should get a book.”
And get a book we did. In fact, between our own purchases and hand me down volumes we amassed quite a baby library in a short time. It was just one of the preparations we needed to make. But I had my own list of things I needed to attend to. Jackson (who that very spring had lightened our wallets to the tune of about fifteen hundred dollars) and I took our last ride together later that summer.
Late one August night, on the way back from band practice Jackson shuddered his last shudder and forced me to pull over on deserted highway.
I had a romantic notion of sitting on the roof, playing a haunting eulogy on my guitar while other cars occasionally passed and dimmed their headlights, paying their respects. But as always seems to happen when real life intrudes on fantasy, I played bass guitar in the band, and as the bass makes no sound at all when its not plugged in, I was forced into action and flagged down a passing car as I had no cell phone at the time. (Another change brought about by the coming of children.)
And so Jackson was towed for the last time under my care, the bill for repair now a luxury for a person who worked one hundred yards from where he lived and who had a daughter on the way.
I sold him to a kindly British Saab mechanic named Bill who had a voice like Johnny Cash and a face like Keith Richards. He was going to rebuild Jackson yet again and give him as a graduation present to his daughter. This, I told myself, was a noble parting. He was going to a good place with people who knew how to care for him and would treat him in the dignified manner he deserved.
I still occasionally see Jackson around town, when his new owner is home from college. The “I love my wife” bumper sticker has been peeled off and replaced with some band logo I am not familiar with, but the old sound is still there. In fact it’s probably more accurate to say “I occasionally hear Jackson around town.”
Having said all that, with two children now it’s nice to have a car that starts when I want it to. (And who doesn’t set dogs to barking when I drive by.) Yep, it’s all about growing up, being responsible and making good decisions. I have two beautiful girls now who need Dad to be less romantic and more centered. It doesn’t mean that all fun times have ended, quite the contrary. I don’t think I have laughed as consistently as I have since becoming a parent. I have two budding comedians on my hands now and a house full of giggles.
But perhaps someday, say eighteen years or so from now, near graduation time, I’ll see a classified ad in the paper for an old Saab, and maybe Jackson will be waiting for me to buy him back to give to my own daughter.
Hang on buddy, I’ll be back for you.
Next Sunday...Chapter one: A Word From the U.B.A.T.Y. (The Union of Babies, Toddlers and Youth)
