Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Goodbye Old Friend


We said goodbye to my old van this morning! I get attached to my vehicles but it was definitely time for this one to go. I remember when I got my license and dad bought my Mustang, he traded in his pickup. It sat on the Taussig Ford used car lot for a while and I had to pass that lot everytime I went to town and I would get tears seeing it sitting there all alone on the car lot.

The 1992 Mazda MPV . . it was probably one of the best vehicles I ever owned. We bought it new in November, 1991 in Beaumont, Texas. We were living in Jasper, Texas and not long after we bought it, we had a house fire. The tires on the left side burned and I couldn't believe how much of the van melted! That was a surprise . . my vehicle was made of plastic! It was fixable so it was fixed and I was back up in running way before my house was repaired. There were many memories in that van because Chad was just 4 years old when we bought it. I can't tell you how many trips we made to FL in the van. It was such a great vehicle for traveling with a child.

In 2001, when we were finally ready to buy a new car (one of us was ready way before the other of us was ready!), I wanted another van just like this one. We were at the Mazda dealer, planning to trade in the old van, had the deal almost made and I asked what they planned to do with the old van. The salesman said "See that corner way back there. We'll park it there and then some auction company will buy it or it will be sold for scrap!" WHAT? My van . . sold for scrap? I started crying. Vince was just astounded so we left with the van. We ended up deciding to get a Honda CRV instead of another van and Vince traded in his vehicle . . not about to go through that fiasco again.

For 5 years the van has sat in the driveway, never driven but we've been paying insurance on it. In our effort to get rid of excess baggage, the van was donated to St. Vincent dePaul this morning. No tears . . just handed the keys over, went to the courthouse and did the paper work and we now have just one more vehicle to get rid of. Vince has a 1986 Ford Pickup and once we finish making trips to the dump with all our other junk, we'll donate it too and finally, we will have three cars for three drivers. Our driveway will no longer look like a used car lot (or should I say . . a salvage yard!)

Judy L.