Any person of any age remembers the car that drove them to school, to grandma's and let's not forget those family vacations. We have pictures and memories of each location, but what brought us there?
My earliest memory of the momma mobile is the Chevy Citation, that two tone wonder with faux leather seats. In the summer, you had to remember to bring a towel or second degree burns greeted you. In the winter, you never seemed warm. The windows were hand cranked and there was no stereo, just a radio. As simple as it was, it carried us to Christmas delights in the wilds of West Texas, to camping trips and pool side. It was where I blew my first bubble. It ended its life in those wilds of West Texas and I was introduced to the new momma mobile, the Pontiac 6000. A solid white station wagon where I spent many a road trip against the very back window with all the luggage. Before seat belt laws and child safety restraints, I would doze among the suitcases as mom sang along to Janice, Carole and Joni.
It was this momma mobile that greeted the additions to our little family. Now it carried four children and we listened to Dad sing along to George, Hank and Johnny. One Christmas Eve though, we made a memory in that Pontiac that brings a smile each year no matter where I am. It was late as we traveled home from the Wilson's Christmas Eve. Santa would hopefully come considering it was well past midnight and we were not in our beds. Children sleepy yet too excited, parents weary yet happy, "I Wanta Wish you a Merry Christmas" came on the radio. All six voices joined in and we sang at a definitely unrespectful volume. None of us knew the Spanish words but that did not deter our merriment. When the song ended, the smiles and giggles remained and they remain still some 20 odd year later.
As fate would have it, the Pontiac met her demise as well in West Texas. She climbed her last hill in Comanche. Her engine replaced she made it to my teenage years but her spark was gone. Our next momma mobile was the latest and greatest of engineering marvels, the minivan, a Ford Aerostar stood blue in the sun. Now we four had plenty of room to spread out, no longer could we fight about who sat with the luggage. It was in the Aerostar that I took my driving test. It was in this momma mobile I carried my brother and sisters to school. By the end of her days, the sliding door wouldn't open and we crawled out the front, but she will forever be my first car.
Now, I have four children of my own. I carry them to school, dance class, football games and Boy Scouts. Our latest momma mobile was again a blue Ford minivan, although, it's now called a Windstar. Its windows were electric, and it had dual sliding doors, but a minivan she was. She has carried us camping, family vacations and through my daughter's first driving lessons. I wonder what they will remember about her. Will it be how the twins drew self portraits in Sharpie on the back of the middle seat? Will it be how one of the sliding doors stopped working and the other had its days? Or will it be how it was the car that took them fishing for the first time? She carried me through my teacher certification training and as she approached mile marker 180,000, she had begun to have a serious hitch in her gitty up. She was on her last leg as I drove into the Ford house last Saturday afternoon. We both knew her time had come.
Brian Faulk met me outside and shook my hand as well as the hand of my companion. Both of us share the same first name and as most people do, he grinned and said, "Well, that makes it easy." We looked at all the shiny cars and the latest of momma mobiles, the SUV. Minivans have been deemed uncool, then, Brian showed me the Flex. As destiny would have it, she was white. Although not called a station wagon, she makes you think of those days of old when the "woodie" carried children to school or the Brady's to their next crazy adventure. For me, she sang "I Wanta Wish you a Merry Christmas" and had me looking for days gone by. So we chatted us two Rachels and Brian, while the finance man worked his magic. I learned Brian had three children of his own and smiled when he said, "Bless your heart," when he learned of my profession. He gave us a crazy grin and awarded us the "most miles on a Windstar". They gave me $500 for her and after a little help from Dad on the down payment, the Ford Flex was ours to drive away.
Now she has all the current bells and whistles from a self lifting back door to heated seats. She is a far cry from the blue minivan I left behind that in memory is worth more than $500. We picked up the kids in her on Monday afternoon and watched in gleeful delight as they marveled at the updated momma mobile; however, she was not christened quite yet. Not until Adele came on and we six sang along to "Set Fire to the Rain". A whisper of a moment where I swore the Pontiac 6000 lived on and Santa would be on his sleigh.
The momma mobile is sometimes our first car, sometimes that vehicle where we pray she runs and sometimes she carries us to destinations new and exciting. Although, I updated her, stories of memories will forever be started with, "Remember when we went to so in so, we were in the blue van then." Our cars are not just metal and plastic and rubber wheels, they don't just carry us around, they carry our connections to time and space. I write and wonder where this one will take me. What will my children remember of her? To Brian at All-Star, you didn't just sell me a car, you gave me a way to future memories. I hope they be as joyous as those of her predecessors.
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