In 1997, my parents bought be a car, a tan, 1997 Ford Escort, anticipating that I would need to be able to get to and from student teaching that fall, and also because my part-time job in market research was moving across town and away from the bus line. The perjorative nickname my girlfriend gave to it, the Golf Cart, became my fond name for it. I drove the care through several moves and jobs, and through most of graduate school, until a Suburban failed to yield on a snowy day in 2007, and the car was totalled. Becky and I bought a used Saturn to replace it, and that car served us well, but it wasn’t my car.
Above: Not my car, but you get the idea.
Once, I would see copies of the Golf Cart on the road regularly, but twenty years on, they have become rare, as to be expected. But there is a parking lot on my way to and from work where a Golf Cart is frequently parked. Sometimes I see it fairly regularly, and sometimes it disappears for weeks and months. There is some rust around the bottom of the body, but it has held up remarkably well, as it would have to for 20 years. I recently stopped our minivan, with my confused children in the back, to stalk the Golf Cart a little bit and reminisce. I peered into the interior–somewhat messier than I used to keep it, but I won’t judge. It was familiar and yet not–like visiting a place one used to live. I never lived in the Golf Cart, but I put many miles on it–over 100,000, all of them my driving. Job interviews, dates, relocations. It was the car I drove to both my weddings, and the car I had after my divorce. I had it when I conceived of my plan to switch from high school teaching to college and attend graduate school An old friend indeed.
And a lot smaller than I remember.