Firsts and Lasts

My wife's grandmother bought her very first new car in 1989.  A white Mercury Topaz, 4-door sedan.

She drove that little Topaz around Ft. Wayne, Indiana until she moved down South a dozen or so years ago.  From then on out it has only seen Saturday drives to the beauty parlor and Sunday drives to church.  Throw in the very seldom trip to the grocery store when no one else was around to take her and the car has a whopping 57,526 miles on it.

That darling little Topaz is also grandma's last car.  After recovering from a broken right hip last year, her family has decided (and she reluctantly acquiesced) that she should no longer drive.

She's turns ninety-six on Feb 5th.

It's probably about time.

My wife is thankful because in her opinion it's somewhere around 30 years overdue.  She never remembers riding anywhere with her grandmother that the driving wasn't at least a little scary.

Grandma grew up on a farm in Montana where the ability to drive was a necessity.  She clearly remembers driving a tractor and a truck as young as six.  Horses and cattle always needed to be fed, and she & her sister were the helpers who drove the tractor and/or the feed truck around while her dad unloaded the hay.

Being the practical-minded person she is, grandma took it upon herself to teach several of her grandkids to drive long before their own parents thought they were due.  She would take a grandkid or two to the mall or civic center parking lot and let them drive around.  Most of them started as young as ten.  They didn't tell their parents, because it was silently understood that they were too young to legally be behind the wheel of a car on any public property.

When she fell and broke her hip last Spring, she was very disappointed that it would hamper her driving.  She even told one of the paramedics attending to her, "I wish it had been my left hip so I could get back to driving sooner."  That's her personality.  Independent - she still lives by herself, cooks for herself, does her own laundry and probably would still drive herself to get her hair done and to church if the family didn't look after her so very closely.  She's spirited, lively and still very full of energy.  During her stay at a rehabilitation facility one of the nurses suggested she join the group in the main dining room for dinner one evening.  Grandma's response was, "Why would I want to do that?  It's just a bunch of old folks!"

So the car is no longer parked in her driveway and she's a little sad with the life changes going on; but she decided if she couldn't drive it, it should still be used for a good purpose.

That car became my oldest son's first car recently.  Not for free, mind you.  Grandma understands the importance of young people knowing what things are worth.  He bought it with his own money, has to fix anything that's wrong with it with his own money, and has to pay his own insurance on the car.

Smart woman, that one.


While we were signing the paperwork grandma said, "This is the first time I've been without a car since I was twenty years old."

Think about that for a minute.

That means she had her first car in 1935.

She drove for 75 years.

I can't imagine.