The Green Explorer

Today we junked the old Ford Explorer. It was painted a bold shade of pine green. My parents bought the car used while I was in high school. One day, they picked me up from school while test driving the car. It was such a surprise! I couldn't even drive yet and the "new" car was awesome.

Later on, I learned to drive in that green Explorer. It was a manual. As a first time driver, I was shocked at how much effort was required to start the car and get it into first gear without stalling. It took me countless tries to get it right. I remember saying to my Mom, “I can’t believe you have to do this every time you drive the car!”

We were in Vermont the summer I learned to drive. The roads stretched to forever and the sunlight lasted well into evening. I felt so accomplished on the day I drove all the way from the grocery store in town back to the house — a whole ten minutes of drive time.

We went to many places in the Explorer with our two labradors. They loved riding in the car. We would setup their dog beds in the far back, and the dogs would usually end up riding in the back seat with my brother and me. We all bonded a lot during those drives in the Explorer. We drove to the mountains in the winter and to the beach in the summer, and the labs went with us everywhere.

Before leaving the junkyard today, I was looking through the car one last time when I found a tennis ball under the back seat. I thought about the places we went with our labs and the times I threw tennis balls for them on a beach or in a field. In previous years we said goodbye to the dogs and now we were saying goodbye to the car.

I smiled, knowing I would keep those wonderful memories always. I took one last look at the car and I put the tennis ball in my pocket.

Addendum: The transcript of the voice message from the auto body shop.

We put your explorer up on the rack to check it out, and it's way too rusted to do anything with it. Your rear shackles are gone. You need two brake lines in the back. In order to bleed the brakes, because it's so rusty, we would have to get new wheel cylinders. Unfortunately, you know, it's just not worth fixing. You're going to spend way too much money to do it. You also have, uh, two bungee cords holding up your gas tank. So what we've done is we've just backed it out and parked it. Unfortunately based on all the rust underneath, you know, we just can't work on it, because it would just cost you way too much money. Any questions, call me. Thank you.