Drive down memory lane

So a friend of mine got a new car this past weekend, and as we were talking about the nice shiny new car, it got me thinking about an old familiar car in my past. The Sable.

The Sable was my college car, that my Dad gave me my freshman year at Auburn. It was a 1991 Mercury that came into my life in 1999. It taught me a lot about life, gratitude, and most importantly, humility. You see, there were six of us kids, and Dad believed that, when it came to vehicles, we only needed something to get us around. We could have a nice car when we got a job and could buy it ourselves. This produced some fun cars for the brood... the Pumpkin, the Silver Bullet, the Rosewood, the Roach....

I have pics of the Sable of course... in fact I have one framed in my office right now. Unfortunately I have none on my computer. BUT I found this photo on the internet that is a reasonably accurate depiction. Behold.



Here are some fun facts about the Sable:

1. It had been totaled at least once. My dad, being in the automotive paint and body repair industry at the time, saved it from a premature journey to the scrap heap and had his guys put it back together with scrap parts and Bondo.

2. It was silver... mostly. The rear door on the passenger side was a distinctly different color. To be fair, it was in the same general color family as the rest of the car, but that particular shade was clearly the result of some guesswork in the paint booth. I suspect my Dad used this car as a training tool for some new employee. Way to kill two birds with one stone, Dad - I didn't need my car to look cool or normal or monochromatic! Whatevs!

3. After firing her up, I could completely remove the keys from the ignition and the car would continue to operate as though they never left. Sometimes they just fell out.

4. Due to a few mysterious stains on the seats, I installed luxurious furry black and white faux cow seat covers on the front and rear seats. These were financed by several successful "cow seat collection drives" which were also known as keggers at our apartment junior year, during which people would literally put money in a big cylindrical container (generously donated and decorated by Kristin's stepmom) that said "Cow Seat Collection Drive." By my senior year, the cow seats had made the Sable famous around town. The cow seats were the one cool thing about the Sable. I would park that b*tch right there on the sorority hill, among the beamers and the shiny new SUVs, and it could be proud, because of the cow seats.

5. I had luxurious big furry dice on the rearview to go with the seats. During football season I attached a tiger tail to the trunk, and I had some nice Auburn and University of Margaritaville (from spring break in Key West) decals sprucing up the rear window.

6. It was huge, like a big beautiful silver/gray barge with cow seats. I could fit seven people in the Sable, and did regularly, once for the five-hour road trip (with traffic) to Tuscaloosa and back for the 2000 Iron Bowl. All the luggage fit easily in the giant trunk. We all leaned forward, and we were off! Kristin rode the whole way with furry dice in her face and didn't complain at all (riiiiight).

7. The speedometer only went up to 85. Literally, that was the highest number on the speedometer, located all the way at the end, as though the Mercury factory folks felt exceeding that speed was unthinkable. Truthfully, in the Sable it was, because if you went over 63, it started to shake.

8. The odometer was so far over 100,000 that it had completely started over, and if you didn't know better, you'd think it had normal mileage for an 8,9, 10-year-old car. Really, it was that number plus 100,000.

9. Once someone rammed into it while it was innocently parked at my apartment complex, destroying one of the headlights. I drove it home, and my dad took me out to a real live scrap yard. I watched as he pried a headlight off a Ford Taurus from the same era, and had one of his guys hook the wires up. It worked, but it didn't exactly fit, so he wrapped white masking tape around it and told me not to drive too fast, or it would go flying off. It stayed like that for the rest of the time I had it, which was at least a year, probably more.

10. It was ok to make fun of the Sable. I was cool with it. Meg called it the Disable, and that caught on.

11. The Sable finally died in the parking lot of Varsity Tans in Auburn, about three months before I graduated. I put that baby into reverse, and well, nothing happened. Apparently the transmission blew, and the thousand or so it would have cost to fix it totaled the whole car. April had to come pick me up and I cried for days. My Dad really came through for me, sending up my mom's 1997 Bonneville on a tow truck and towing the Sable away. It was a sad day.

12. This is what succeeded the Sable, and what I drove throughout law school. Thar she blows! Seriously, though, I felt like I was driving a Bentley - it was so great.
Haha - people don't wonder why I bought a brand new convertible after I landed my first job out of law school. These cars were blessings though, because without them I would have been stranded all the time. They were really life lessons on wheels, because I learned that cars are really just cars, and you should impress people with who you are, not what you have, and finally, that fancy sporty shiny new cars don't make you cool - cow seats do.

Sable - wherever you are - this Bud's for you.