When we moved from Sweden to Vermont, this was our first car. I had always wanted a minivan, so that was the attraction. It was a Toyota. It had stick shift.
Jenny said that she learned how to drive on that car.
After a while we began having trouble. After close inspection, I could see a line of corrosion from the ground up to hip level. I concluded that it has been flooded in salt water!!!
I complained to the Toyota dealer. They denied that it was flooded. However they took it on trade for another car. I used it to buy a car for Jenny who was just graduating from high school. I selected a Nissan Ultima, that I thought would be a reliable car for Jen. She hated it!!! My bad; I should have not tried to surprise her, but brought her to the dealer instead so she could choose herself.
I went back to my father again to help us buy a car. He came up with one like that, a Chrysler Lebanon. It was pretty cool, with a big engine, and a turbocharger. Most fun, it had an audio voice system. That sounds mundane today, but back then it was innovative. Because of the voice, we named the car George. I used to joke. George would say, "Your door is ajar." I would reply, "A door is not a jar." or "No, your door is adjar."
When George got old and cranky, in the morning the first time someone touched the door handle, George would recite his entire repertoire of sentences. It was as if he was lonely, and it encouraged us to think of George as "he." That's not so different than thinking of Tarwathie as "she."
[Libby said that there was another car she bought before this one, some kind of blue Chrysler. I don't remember that at all, and I have no picture.]
After some time, I started working in Conneticut while living in Vermont. Libby needed a car while I was gone, so we bought this one. I never drove that car, so I don't have much to say.
When Dave got his license, Libby let him borrow that car to go to school. He wrecked it one morning right around the corner of our house.
End of that car.
Libby went without a car for the remainder of our time in Vermont. She said, "I wanted to teach Dave that cars were not disposable things that you can just wreck and replace."
Libby went without a car for the remainder of our time in Vermont. She said, "I wanted to teach Dave that cars were not disposable things that you can just wreck and replace."
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The car you bought me was a 1994 Nissan Maxima, similar to a Ultima. The reason I hated driving it was because I learned how to drive with the mini van = no hood! I went from a vehicle that had no front end to a vehicle that had a long front end that I couldn't see over :) That damn Maxima, I used to say that every part of that car broke except the horn, until the horn failed me one day and while someone backed into me! I ran that car into the ground. While I definitely appreciated a car (!), it was my first and only lemon. I learned my lessons with that one and have had good luck ever since, even with my 2nd and 3rd cars being rebuilts... My 4th and 5th (Nissan Frontiers) have treated me well so far: knock on wood.
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