Goodbye Ponneack

So back in May my Pontiac broke down at a busy intersection and we had it towed home, and there it sat until last Wednesday. We donated it to Colorado Public Radio, which means we get a tax deduction and a membership, and when Ira Glass demands that we contribute during the fundraising campaigns we can ignore him for a little longer. It was incredibly easy to donate. They did not care that it is undriveable and just sent a tow truck to take care of it.

It was my very first car. I had a moment of insight while driving on the Beltway with Johnnie a few weeks before I needed to be owning a car so I could drive myself to Penland. I thought, "I know! I want a green Pontiac Grand Am with a manual transmission!" And when we got home I checked online, and there was a great used one for sale about an hour away. I could not drive stick yet so Dad had to go with me both to actually pay for the car and to drive it home.

He took me to the high school parking lot and showed me what to do. Then I drove around for a week and stalled out on a speed bump right in front of a cop, who checked if I was all right and laughed when I said I was fine, just learning to drive stick.

I took the car to Penland and back, and then to Annapolis, and then when I joined ACE I flew home and drove the car out to Salt Lake City. Then on our days off we could drive wherever we wanted, especially nice since the Europeans couldn't usually rent cars (or at least not for a more reasonable price). We drove to Santa Cruz and San Dimas, to Denver and back to Flagstaff. We saw King's Canyon and Sequoia National Forest, and Water Lube! Then I was done with ACE and drove to Fort Collins and left the car there in a CSU parking lot while I took a Greyhound back to Maryland! That was an experience for another post...

Then I moved to Fort Collins for real and met Eric and taught him how to drive stick by going around and around the oval late one night. We didn't drive too far with it together, but we did go to Santa Fe and to the Wyoming Rodeo.

The point is, I drove it across the whole country and then some before it even thought about giving up, which is good for an old car. It was a lot of driving, and I have a lot of good memories associated with those drives. I would much rather have fixed it than give it up, because I am sentimental like that. Goodbye car!