. . . . . . . . It Came About Today
In 1981 the little blue car bought used from a long ago extinct auto dealership named Eddie Horn had about seven or eight thousand miles on the odometer.
This afternoon it registered about 40,000 miles give or take a hundred one way or another. For a 1979 Datsun 210, it sounds as if in its 30 years of existence, this little blue car had spent its life just going to church, the market and the movies and not very often at the latter activity.
Well, that little blue car actually had in effect circled the earth twenty times and was on its twenty-first trip around.
My little blue Datsun had traveled more than 500,000 miles, most of it in my possession - YES - a half million miles !
I say most of the mileage was while in my possession but discount that first seven or eight thousand, put on by a prior owner before my purchase, and theh discount a few thousand more traveled in it by Geezerguy and his lady, Yarntangler.
The latter two hauled and drove it around the western part of the country a couple years behind their motorhome, then returned it to me, claiming it was too sick to depend upon any longer.
Some local repairs and a good tuneup, added to their brand new alternator and a hundred bucks worth of tires, and this lttle blue baby was back in service for another year.
It did become sick again, however, and sat idle most of 2009, needing some extensive re-working once more.
In the meantime a more serviceable vehicle came my way quite by surprise and inexpensively, as a gift from my local son and hiis wife. A couple months later a decision was reluctantly made to put the little blue car out of its misery.
This afternoon I kissed my baby goodbye and watched a junk dealer load it onto his truck and haul it away after I had retrieved my still-registered veterans number plate from the rear. On Monday I will cancel the car's insurance.
On second thought, knowing the car is going to a crusher with the insurance still intact, could I claim the car as a total loss and collect its value - just for the memories?
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That Datsun made a lot of people happy. Scrabblebuff and Drummer boy added a few thousand miles to the odometer too when they returned from Germany and lived in San Antonio.
ReplyDeleteI remember being stopped by a California highway patrol officer one day who took a good look at the car, a another at Geezerguy and his long beard and a good long look at that special Veteran's plate.
Seems he had never seen the plate before and simply wanted to check it out. Once he had admired it he congratulated Geezer on the fact that both he and the Datsun were both still on the road! Geezer, smiled and thanked him for his interest.
Mostly I remember how much Grandma Shasta loved driving her little blue sports car! I'm sorry to see it go.