One Car, Two Years, Three People

For the past two years, we've been a one-car family. It's not been easy driving to the train and baseball and work and repeat. I wish I could say our decision to own one car was eco-driven, our own personal statement about sustainability and green. It's not. It based on cowardice. My husband and I cannot stand dealing with car salesmen. Or car sales ladies. Either one.

For my husband, I think it has to do with his upbringing. His father owned an auto parts shop growing up and he spent his summers stripping engines and foraging for car parts. He got hit in the face with a dolly and split his nose open. He drove a forklift off a cliff (or large hill). He sweated through many North Carolina summers, cursing under his breath. He did say it was a slight improvement over working in a tobacco warehouse.

For me, it's that I've never really been a "car" person. Or maybe I never got over my first car. When I was 16 years-old, my dad bought a red Triumph convertible - TR6. I think he actually bought it for himself, but at some point realized that when you're 6' 4", the TR6 is not the optimal driving car. Unfortunately for my dad, that car was a stick shift and I wrecked the transmission. And that was all she wrote. 

I know. Youth is wasted on the young.

When I went to college, I lived in New Orleans. I took the streetcar, hitched (yes I'm an idiot) and my roommate had a car. Then I spent a year studying in Paris and taking the Métro. Mais oui. When I worked in Manhattan, I took Metro-North. All along I had this car my parents bought me. It was a blue Volkswagen Golf that I got when we were living in Massachusetts. It had no A/C. Now when you're living in Massachusetts, that will probably work. When you move to New Orleans or Raleigh, that will not work. The Blue Bunny as I called her eventually died in North Carolina after 12 years of loyal service. Boy did I go through some hot summers.

My next car was a Volvo station wagon I bought from my friend Amy. It had 178,000 miles on it. Again no A/C, no air bags or other modern safety features. On a positive note, it only cost me $1,500. I drove that car back and forth from Cisco in RTP for a couple of years. Then I got married. I got pregnant. And we needed a car. A real car with air bags and seatbelts that worked. We traded in our old Volvo for a shiny new Volvo sedan. It was awesome. We even leased it through the business, so it was sort of like a free car. When the lease was up, we turned her in. 

At Least My Car Doesn't Have an 8-Track

By that time, my dad had sold us one of his old Jeeps. Then he gave me my grandma's Jeep when she wasn't allowed to drive anymore. I'm thankful he gave me that car because the car she had before was a pale yellow, gigantor Caddy with Al Hirt stuck in the 8-track player. Slowly but surely those two Jeeps died and my husband and I were faced with the ugly truth. We needed a car. From like a dealership. We were going to have to negotiate.

We test drove a few cars including a sensible Subaru Forester. Ultimately, we bought a Volkswagen Tiguan. Get it? It's like a Tiger and an Iguana, in the same car. My husband swore he wouldn't buy a VW, but they are nice cars to drive. Have we had problems? Yes. You betcha. That's the nature of cars. That's why I hate cars. They're so needy. It's always, "I need oil. There's no air in my tires." Such high maintenance. 

As often as possible, I drive the scooter my husband bought me for Christmas about 10 years ago. Not a terribly practical vehicle for New England. But I love my scooter. It's a Yamaha Vino. It's silver. I have a shiny red helmet and a horn.

My dream car is a dark blue Porsche 911 Carrera convertible. As a kid, we lived in LA briefly and my dad had a friend in La Cañada. One day my dad and I followed him to his house, trailing behind him in his Porsche 911 Carrera. Maybe I'm dreaming this but I think it really happened. I remember that beautiful car, the mountains in the distance and the feeling of being in LA.

I guess when you are finally able to buy a Porsche, there's not a lot of haggling that goes on. Or maybe the haggling gets worse? We shall see.

Can You Go Home Again?

Next week, we're going to Austin for a long weekend. I lived in Austin briefly as a child. My brother was born there. My dad went to the University of Texas. We're going to get the lay of the land, see what's what, check out the bats, etc. The last time I was in Texas was in September of 2010 I was in Arlington, Texas where I was born. I was there to attend my grandma's funeral. My brother and I made a very quick trip home to Texas.

We were living in Austin when my dad left grad school before finishing his PhD. With two little kids he needed a real job and he found one with IBM. I Been Moved. And we did. We moved a lot. At first, we moved in and around Texas. In a way, that was okay because we always had our grandparents living in Arlington. We went to Arlington all the time. I remember the towns on the route from Houston to Arlington. I knew we were getting closer when I heard those names - Ennis, Midlothian, Waxahachie.

Then we started moving out of Texas to Raleigh, North Carolina; San Marino, California; Westport, Connecticut; and finally Weston, Massachusetts. My last year of high school was in Weston, Massachusetts. That was a tough one. After high school, I went to Tulane University for college. I even moved during college - spending my junior year in Paris, France. Then I moved back to Weston, back to Westport, on to DC, back to New York, Raleigh again, and now I'm in Fairfield, Connecticut.

When you move as often as I do, you don't really have a place to call home. But I dream of a home. Some place I could go back to, eventually. Because I don't think Connecticut is it. I hope this isn't it. This can't be it, right?

My current home, Fairfield, is a cool little town.We're close enough to the City to take advantage of City life. We've got live music, some decent restaurants, a downtown and several beaches. I use the term beach loosely because here in Connecticut the beach is on Long Island Sound. It's rocky and the water shimmers with pollutants. But it's pretty from a distance. We lived here in Connecticut for almost 4 years when I was a kid. That was a long stretch for us. So I have many friends here, and I run into old friends all the time.

In September when I was in Arlington, I had this strange feeling about being in Texas. It felt familiar, like I think home must feel to people who lived somewhere all their lives. It was hot, the streets were wide and you could see everything because the land is so flat. Six Flags looked different, kind of small and run down. There are strip malls everywhere, not my favorite. But the feeling was familiar.

I was traveling with my brother Clay, the one from Austin. Clay spent the formative years of his life in Boston, going to high school there and then on to BU. Clay is not a patient person. I think this may be the result of the whole Boston thing. Angriest drivers on the planet, but that's another story.

In my haste, to keep up with Clay and get out out of the airport rental car place, I left my bag of travel sample beauty products in the rental car bathroom. When we got to our hotel, I made a quick trip to the nearby Walgreens to replace said samples. A lady working at the cosmetic counter asked me if I was going somewhere. I explained that I was traveling here to Arlington for my grandma's funeral. She came around the counter and gave me a hug. Let me tell you, that would never happen in Connecticut. Not in a million years. Not if we were being attacked by aliens. And for a minute, I sort of freaked. It was so strange to me that people could be so sweet.

But that's how people are in Texas. Not all of them. And they may not mean it. But they say hello to strangers, they hold the door, they let you pull your car out of your parking spot without blasting their horns. And that feels familiar.

At Granny's funeral, we had the usual assortment of distant relatives, some of them examples of the worst of what a poor education, lack of job options, and growing up in the South can do to a person. But there's my Uncle David in his Wrangler jeans and cowboy hat and boots. Also a product of Texas.

It's kind of a funny story about Uncle David. Uncle David is my mother's brother. My mother that my dad is no longer married to. But Uncle David showed up to his ex-brother-in-law's mother's funeral, drove a ways because he lives in Grandview now. He drove up because that's what decent people do. We were all happy to see him, including my dad.

At the last minute, he became a pall bearer. My dad has replaced all his major joints at this point so David took his place when his knee started to falter, and he carried my grandmother to her grave. After the funeral, we said our goodbye's. David got in his huge truck and drove off. And my brother and I got on a plane back to New York, and back to Connecticut.

I don't know where I'll end up, but I hope I find home some day. Maybe in Austin. We'll see.